Announcements: Kudos

National Academy Of Medicine

Four NIHers are among the 100 New Members of the National Academy of Medicine.

Carolina Barillas-Mury (NIAID), Distinguished Investigator, Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, for discovering how plasmodium parasites manipulate the mosquito immune system to survive, and how these interactions maintain global malaria transmission.

Jessica Gill (formerly NINR, now at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing), for her team’s reporting that acute plasma tau predicts prolonged return to play after a sport-related concussion.

Mariana Julieta Kaplan (NIAMS) Chief, Systemic Autoimmunity Branch, and Deputy Scientific Director, for seminal contributions that have significantly advanced the understanding of the pathogenic role of the innate immune system in systemic autoimmune diseases, atherosclerosis, and immune-mediated vasculopathies.

Shannon Nicole Zenk (Director, NINR) for research on the built environment in racial/ethnic minority and low-income neighborhoods that enriched understanding of the factors that influence health and contribute to health disparities, demonstrating the need for multilevel approaches to improve health and achieve health equity.

Sammies

It was a banner year for NIH at the 2021 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals celebration, also known as “the Sammies,” which honors “feds” who make significant contributions to the health and wellbeing of Americans.

2021 COVID Response Award: NHLBI Director Gary Gibbons and NIMHD Director Eliseo Pérez-Stable were honored for addressing the higher COVID-19 rates in the nation’s underserved communities. The two worked tirelessly to develop and implement federal programs for the nation’s underserved communities that increased testing and participation in COVID-19 treatment and vaccine trials.

2021 Federal Employee of the Year Award: Barney Graham, deputy director of NIH’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC), and Kizzmekia Corbett, formerly with the VRC and now at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. They received this honor for leading the groundbreaking research that led to an mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.

Finalist: NCI Senior Investigator Brigitte Wideman for her work on neurofibromatosis.