NIH Construction Updates Facilities, Affects Parking and Traffic
BY MICHAEL TABASKO, OD
Are you returning to the office or lab in 2022? Major construction projects at NIH on the Bethesda campus and on the Hamilton, Montana, campus may change how you navigate the day.
On December 20, 2021, Lawrence A. Tabak, the principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), began serving as the acting director of NIH. President Joe Biden visited NIH on December 2, 2021, to discuss the nation’s winter strategy against the COVID-19 pandemic.
My Time as Deputy Director for Intramural Research: The Early Years
BY MICHAEL GOTTESMAN, DDIR
I’ve had a lot of time to think about the nearly 30 years that I’ve served as the DDIR. My philosophy of science management has led to important changes while preserving the IRP’s basic conceptual underpinnings—that long-term, stable support of a diverse group of talented scientists is a formula for the extraordinary innovation and achievements of the IRP.
Gary Peck’s Discovery Led to a Drug to Treat Severe Acne
BY GORDON MARGOLIN, OFFICE OF NIH HISTORY
Did you know that an NIH scientist’s work on a vitamin A derivative (retinoid) led to the development of a drug that can treat, and even cure, severe acne? NIH’s Gary Peck discovered, in the 1970s, that a powerful drug called isotretinoin (or 13-cis retinoic acid) was effective against treatment-resistant severe acne.
Like many others, I started my postdoctoral training at NIH during the COVID-19 pandemic. I arrived in August 2020, after almost all NIH employees, contractors, and trainees were assigned to mandatory telework (beginning in March 2020). In June 2020, those whose could not work remotely were allowed to return to the labs. But the return was limited. Trainees like myself, who can telework effectively, are still working entirely remotely. All of these changes, while necessary for ensuring employee and trainee safety, serve to make socializing with colleagues difficult.
Meet your recently tenured colleagues: Andrea B. Apolo (NCI-CCR), Susan Harbison (NHLBI), Brandon K. Harvey (NIDA), Rosandra Kaplan (NCI-CCR), and Carlo Pierpaoli (NIBIB, pictured).
Read about NIH scientific advances and discoveries by intramural scientists: A.I. and hardware innovations enhance microscopy; ALS drug may help treat rare neurodegenerative disorder; cancer drugs being tested to fight Alzheimer disease; HIV-infected individuals control the virus in different ways; early childhood eating problems linked to developmental delay; and augmenting immune response may effectively treat pneumonia.
