November–December 2020 | NIH Intramural Research Program

NHGRI Scientists Study Ancient Dog Breed

New Guinea Singing Dogs May Hold Clues to Human Vocalization

BY NATALIE HAGEN, NCATS

The New Guinea singing dog, whose harmonious wolf-like howls sound eerily like whale songs, was thought to have been extinct in the wild for some 50 years. But researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute confirmed that this breed still roams the New Guinea Highlands and that studying them may yield clues to how human vocalization developed.

Resistance to the Plague May Be a Double-Edged Sword

The Bubonic Plague Has Made Its Evolutionary Mark on the Human Genome

BY ETHAN SMITH, NINR

Evolutionary pressure to survive the bubonic plague may have selected for genetic mutations that protect certain Mediterranean populations from being infected by the infamous Yersinia pestis, the bacterium behind the plague. But evolution isn’t perfect. Being able to survive the plague may also be the reason for today’s prevalence of another ancient disease—familial Mediterranean fever (FMF)—National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) researchers recently reported.

From the Deputy Director for Intramural Research

A Wonderful October Surprise for the NIH

Harvey Alter Wins the Nobel Prize

BY MICHAEL GOTTESMAN, DDIR

Unless you have been on Mars, you know that early Monday morning, on October 5, 2020, our own Harvey Alter, senior scientist in the NIH Clinical Center, got a call from Sweden notifying him that he was sharing this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for his pioneering work on defining and detecting the hepatitis C virus.

Alumni News: Andrea Pfeifer

Bringing Precision Medicine to Neuroscience

BY MICHAEL TABASKO

One of Andrea Pfeifer’s mottos comes from Carl Zuckmayer, a German writer who said, “One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline–and that’s the important half, because without discipline you wouldn’t know what to do with your luck.” In a career that arcs from the lab to corporate leadership and back again, Pfeifer knows a bit about what it takes to write your own success story.

10th Annual Women Scientists Advisors Scholars Symposium

BY FRANCES FERNANDO NICHD

Ever since 2011, the outstanding research achievements of NIH women postdocs have been recognized at the Annual Women Scientists Advisors (WSA) Scholars Symposium. On October 5, 2020, postdoctoral fellows Alix Warburton (NIAID) and Ida Fredriksson (NIDA) presented their work. They had been selected as WSA scholars from among the 95 women recipients of the 2020 Fellows Award for Research Excellence (FARE).

COVID-19 Timeline at NIH (September–October 2020)

COVID-19 Research and Activities at NIH

Highlights of the COVID-19-related activities that were going on at NIH in September and October.

Research Briefs

Read about NIH scientific advances and discoveries by intramural scientists: experimental treatment for children with eczema; post-exertional malaise in chronic fatigue syndrome; miglustat seems to stabilize swallowing problems in children and adolescents with Niemann-Pick disease type C1 (NPC1); and more.

Joan Steitz’s WALS Lecture on Viral Noncoding RNAs

Taking RNA from Historic Origins to Modernity

BY FRANCES FERNANDO NICHD

Joan Steitz leads and inspires by example, with her infectious passion for all things RNA. As a young college student, she had seen female medical doctors but never a female professor heading a lab. Originally set on medical school, she did not anticipate building a career as a woman molecular biologist.

Colleagues: Recently Tenured

Meet your recently tenured colleagues: Christina Annunziata (NCI-CCR), T.C. “Kelvin” Choi (NIMHD), Tae-Wook Chun (NIAID), Heidi H. Kong (NIAMS), Da-Ting Lin (NIDA), Susan L. Moir (NIAID), Keisuke (Chris) Nagao (NIAMS), John Ngai (NINDS), Kandice Tanner (NCI-CCR, pictured), and Stephen Whitehead (NIAID)

Announcements: Kudos

Congratulations to Harvey Alter for winning the Nobel Prize; Richard Youle for winning the Breakthrough Prize; the five new members of the National Academy of Medicine (Peter L. Choyke, Cynthia E. Dunbar, Heinz Feldmann, Louis M. Staudt, Hannah A. Valantine, and Carlos Alberto Zarate Jr.), and to the winners of the Sammie Awards (Anthony Fauci and Ira Pastan).

FROM THE FELLOWS COMMITTEE

Taking Control of the Job Search During the Pandemic

BY CRAIG MYRUM, NIA

Even in normal times, applying for academic faculty positions is time-consuming, and the competition is fierce. Throw in a pandemic, your chances of snagging that long-sought-after position in academia may feel hopeless. Currently in the midst of my own job search, I have experienced difficult moments, but I have also fortunately found ways to alleviate the anxiety.

News You Can Use: Cyber Safety

Cyber Health Checkup: Don’t Be Phish Food!

BY SUSAN CHACKO, CIT

Did you know that every day, 23 million emails are blocked by the central NIH email filters and 36 million web connections to suspicious sites are stopped at the NIH firewall? Keeping NIH’s employees, patients, and systems safe from cyberattacks is a necessary responsibility for everyone who accesses NIH data and systems.

News You Can Use: National Death Index

Access to the National Death Index Made Easy

Centralized Database Now Available to NIH-supported Researchers

BY SUNITA CHOPRA, NCI

Recently, NIH has made it easier—and free—for NIH-supported epidemiologists and other health and medical researchers to access a centralized database of death-record information held by state vital statistics offices.

Technology Transfer: mHealth

Mobile Technologies Revolutionize Care for People with Substance–Use Disorders

BY DIPTADIP DATTAROY, NCI TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER CENTER

Mobile-health technology (mHealth) lets health-care providers collect data on handheld electronic devices such as cell phones or tablets and use those data to predict the optimal timing for delivering treatments and health-education messages to patients.

From the Annals of NIH History

Glimpses of History through Uniform Patches and Coloring Books

Two New Exhibits at the NIH Clinical Center

BY DEVON VALERA, OFFICE OF NIH HISTORY

Two fairly new exhibits in the NIH Clinical Center (CC)—one on uniform patches and another on coloring books—reveal the more colorful side of the CC’s history.

NEWS FROM AND ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC INTEREST GROUPS

New SIG: Sexual and Gender Minority Health Scientific Interest Group (SGM Health SIG)

The recently established SGM Health Scientific Interest Group (SGM Health SIG) is interested in supporting a range of biomedical, clinical, behavioral, and social science research to advance the health of all sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations, with a specific interest in the disease areas and health conditions that affect these individuals.

Photographic Moment

Award–Winning Fish (Photo)

NICHD researchers created this beautiful image of a juvenile zebrafish, which won first place in the 2020 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

Announcements

News about events, deadlines, lectures including finding volunteers for clinical trials, new URL for CREx website, Technology Transfer opportunities, mandatory training, Pandemic Perspectives, Anita Roberts Lecture with Julie Segre, NIH Summit on State of SARS-CoV2 Antiviral Therapeutics Development, DeWitt Stetten Lecture on general anesthesia, nominations for NIH Director’s Awards, Advancing the Health of Women Through Science meeting series, and Demystifying Medicine starts in January.

This page was last updated on Monday, March 21, 2022