Features

COVID-19 Timeline at NIH

Highlights Through April 30, 2020

COMPILED BY LAURA STEPHENSON CARTER

The COVID-19 pandemic has thousands of NIHers teleworking and all labs to have minimal staffing to carry on essential research or maintenance operations. But many NIH scientists have been working around the clock trying to decipher the secrets held by the virus that causes the disease and to develop treatments and vaccines. The NIH Catalyst has compiled a timeline that highlights much of what is going on.

Revolutionizing Science

Two Nobel Laureates Wow WALS Audiences

BY MEGAN KALOMIRIS, NIAID, AND EMILY MEYER, NEI

The two Nobel Laureates—Frances Arnold and James Allison—who presented WALS lectures this winter were notable for their “firsts.” Arnold was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. James Allison was the first to present a virtual WALS lecture in this historic time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You Are What You Eat

Profile: Emily Chew, M.D.

BY EIMEAR HOLTON, NIAID

Emily Chew understands the power of nutrition, and she has the data to back herself up. Eating fish as “brain food” before taking an exam and consuming goji berries to achieve better eyesight were some of the many wisdoms she learned when growing up in a Chinese immigrant family in British Columbia (Canada).

Discovering a Cure for Sickle-Cell Disease

The Journey of Physician–scientist and Musician John Tisdale, M.D.

BY CAROLINE DUNCOMBE, NIAID

If you were to dissect the anatomy of the NIH director’s band, you would find the supporting beat of John Tisdale’s bass guitar. Although primarily a senior investigator and branch chief in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and in search of a cure for sickle-cell disease, Tisdale plays a secondary role as the resident bass guitarist for NIH musical ensembles.

Rare Disease Day and the DADA2 Story

It Takes Detective Work to Diagnose Rare Diseases

BY CHARLESICE HAWKINS, OD

Many aspects of Sherlock Holmes’s famous detective skills were modeled after one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s medical school professors, Dr. Joseph Bell, who was able to deduce a stranger’s occupation and recent activities based on minute details such as the dirt on their shoes. If only Holmes or Bell could closely observe patients with rare diseases today...

Foxes Frolicking

These fox kits were playing outside their den next to the front doors of Building 30.