Features

Harnessing the Power of RNA Molecules

Studying the Function of Genes, One at a Time

FROM THE NIH IMAGE GALLERY

Lasker Clinical Research Scholars

Compassionate Physicians with an Eye for Research

BY LAURA STEPHENSON CARTER

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.

Building a Partnership

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.

Ambition, and Lots of Fruit Flies

Mihaela “Ela” Serpe Explores Cell Signaling

BY EMILY PETRUS, NINDS

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.”

The Thymus: A Small Organ with Huge Immunological Impact

Special from the 2016 NCI Thymus Symposium

BY OMOZUSI ANDREWS, NIAID

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.

Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival

Celebrating the Past, Looking to the Future

BY TRACEY GOLDNER, NCI

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.