Get to know the four new Lasker Clinical Research Scholars—cancer researchers Christine Alewine, Jung-Min Lee, and Frank Lin, and sickle-cell disease researcher Courtney Fitzhugh (pictured)—who have joined 10 others in the Lasker Program.
BY MICHAEL GOTTESMAN, DDIR, AND HANNAH VALANTINE, CHIEF OFFICER FOR SCIENTIFIC WORKFORCE DIVERSITY
We have had the honor and privilege of co-chairing a task force whose goal is to make recommendations to ensure that women and men have equal opportunities to contribute to the creative and innovative science done at NIH in the intramural research program.
Rwandan Physician Will Bring Home Lessons Learned at NIH
BY LESLEY EARL, NCI
A physician from the Republic of Rwanda is spending a one-year fellowship at the NIH learning how to conduct clinical research and studying the epidemiology of diabetes and heart disease in African immigrant populations. He plans to use what he learns to help people in his home country.
Mihaela “Ela” Serpe credits Nobel laureate George Emil Palade for inspiring her in the 1990s when she was a research associate at the Institute of Cellular Biology and Pathology (Bucharest, Romania). Palade, who had discovered the ribosome, shared the 1974 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with two others “for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell.”
New HHS Secretary Tom Price makes his first official visit to NIH; new mobile germ-free facility at NIH will make sterile products; new NIH child-care center scheduled to be completed by summer.
Meet your recently tenured colleagues: Robert B. Best (NIDDK; pictured), Choonsik Lee (NCI-DCEG), Luigi Daniele Notarangelo (NIAID), Kumaran Ramamurthi (NCI-CCR), Jianxin Shi (NCI-DCEG)
NINR: BIOMARKER IN BLOOD MAY HELP PREDICT RECOVERY TIME FOR SPORTS CONCUSSIONS
CREDIT: PAUL BURNS/BLEND IMAGES/THINKSTOCK
NINR researchers have found that measuring concentrations of tau in the blood may provide an unbiased way to determine when it’s safe for athletes to return to play after a concussion.
Scientists once thought that the thymus—a little organ in your upper chest—was a vestigial leftover without a major function. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that Australian immunologist Jacques Miller made an amazing discovery: The thymus is the place where T cells, the major effector cells of the immune system, are generated.
There is a broken pipeline between basic and applied behavioral and social sciences research,” NIH Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research William Riley told the crowd that had gathered for the inaugural NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival.
Alma Levant Hayden (died 1967), a scientist in the then–National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, is demonstrating a technique called paper chromatography to screen for steroid substances.
FROM THE OFFICE OF INTRAMURAL TRAINING AND EDUCATION
Making the Most of Your NIH Experience
In the 21st century, successful scientists need strong communication skills. You must be able to teach in the research environment and perhaps in the classroom; you must collaborate effectively; and you must function well both as a manager and as a leader. Furthermore, you must understand the career-exploration process, the importance of networking, and effective job-search strategies.
NEWS FROM AND ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC INTEREST GROUPS
Go with the Flow
BY JACQUELINE MINEHART, NEI
These are innovative times in flow cytometry, a technology that simultaneously analyzes multiple characteristics of thousands of cells as they move through fluid and are excited by a light source.
