Departments

From the Deputy Director for Intramural Research

Prioritizing Mental Health and Wellness

BY SHARON MILGRAM AND MICHAEL GOTTESMAN

The past 10 months have been challenging for many of us. With the outbreak of COVID-19, we have had to endure unprecedented challenges and adjust to sudden disruptions in our lives. As our second wave of COVID-19 cases and the cold weather arrive, we face even more challenges. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we all be cognizant of our mental health and wellness and of the well-being of our friends and colleagues.

From the Annals of NIH History

Visual Sandwiches: Lantern Slides from NCI’s Tissue Culture Section

BY MICHELE LYONS, CURATOR

There’s a lot of hands-on work in a museum, much of it involving dust and some sneezing. But the thrill of holding and preserving something created by someone decades before you were born is what keeps a curator reaching for dust masks. Recently, I went through many such masks cleaning and photographing 199 lantern slides dating from the 1940s through the 1960s. And I loved every minute.

Photographic Moment

Vaccine at Last

At NIH’s COVID-19 Vaccine Kick-Off Event, held in December 2020, six frontline health-care workers at the NIH Clinical Center, NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, and others received the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine that was codeveloped with NIAID.

Research Briefs

Read about NIH scientific advances and discoveries by intramural scientists: how color processing is organized in the brain; a common antibiotic is effective against Zika virus; the PIEZO2 gene helps us know when to urinate; the gut trains the immune system to protect the brain; and more.

Colleagues: Recently Tenured

Meet your recently tenured colleagues: Isaac Brownell (NIAMS), Jill Koshiol (NCI-DCEG), Christopher J. Westlake (NCI-CCR, pictured), and Kareem Zaghloul (NINDS).

News You Can Use

Greening the Scientific Community

BY NICKOLAS CHU, NICHD

Making your lab more environmentally friendly doesn’t require drastic changes. Read on to find out what you can do.

NEWS FROM AND ABOUT THE SCIENTIFIC INTEREST GROUPS

Two new SIGS: The Rural Health Interest Group is a trans-disciplinary group of NIH scientists who provide scientific leadership, vision, and support to strengthen rural-health research; the Religion, Spirituality, and Health Scientific Interest Group aims to foster communication, promote collaboration, and facilitate the exchange of information, understanding, and resources concerning the impact of religion and spirituality on health and health outcomes.

Announcements

News about events, deadlines, lectures including contributing to “Behind-the-Mask” initiative finding volunteers for clinical trials, new lecture series on women’s health, Demystifying Medicine, Wednesday Afternoon Lectures, and more.