Features

NIH Rare Disease Day 2023

Virtual No More, Rare Disease Day Comes Charging Back to the NIH

Hundreds of researchers, medical industry representatives, patient advocates, and patients with a rare disease and their families dusted off their zebra-printed neckties, shirts, and shawls and packed the Natcher Conference Center for Rare Disease Day (RDD), the first in-person event after a pandemic-induced two-year hiatus.

To Touch and Be Touched

Nobel Laureate Ardem Patapoutian Delivers the Annual Marshall Nirenberg Lecture

Ardem Patapoutian was a teenager in the midst of re-escalating violence and hyperinflation in Lebanon, his native country, when his parents sent him and his brother off to live with an uncle in Los Angeles. Patapoutian would go on to earn a doctoral degree in biology from the California Institute of Technology (Pasadena, California) in 1996 and embark upon a career, almost entirely at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, investigating the biological receptors for temperature and touch.

Mind the Growth Mindset

Guest Editorial: Professional Development for Staff Clinicians

Staff clinicians have played an essential role in the clinical research enterprise since the inception of the NIH Clinical Center in 1953. We are 320 highly trained physicians and dentists spread across 18 institutes and centers (ICs). Like our clinical faculty counterparts in academic medical centers, staff clinicians continually adapt to revisions in clinical guidelines, improvements in human subject research protection, and new challenges in the practice of medicine.

Christopher McBain Named New NICHD Scientific Director

Accomplished Scientist and Leader to Head Diverse Research Portfolio

In January 2023, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) announced the selection of Christopher McBain as its new Scientific Director (SD). McBain had been serving as Acting SD since June 2021.

A Shared 30th Anniversary

Women Scientists Advisors Celebrate 30 Years of Advocating for Equality

The NIH Catalyst shares both an anniversary and a vision with the Women Scientists Advisors (WSA). In our first issue (February 1993, pages 4–5), Hynda Kleinman, now a retired section chief of National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), reported findings from the 26-member Task Force on the Status of NIH Intramural Women Scientists, which she led. The task force was formed in November 1991 by then-NIH Director Bernadine Healy to identify both real and perceived impediments to NIH women scientists.

All of Us Journeys to NIH Campus

Two All of Us Research Program mobile units, each aptly named “Journey,” will visit the NIH Campus May 8–12 at the Clinical Center’s south parking lot, 10H and outside Natcher Building, 45. Stop by to learn more about the program’s goals and achievements over the past five years, explore the option to enroll in the program onsite, and learn how to leverage the All of Us dataset for your own research projects.

Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved

Kenneth Catania Presents the First Porter Book Club Lecture

“Nature was my first classroom,” said Kenneth Catania to an engaged group of about fifty people gathered for the inaugural Porter Book Club event. Catania is the Stevenson Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee), and presented his book Great Adaptations: Star-Nosed Moles, Electric Eels, and Other Tales of Evolution’s Mysteries Solved, to NIH staff on March 10.

Bang for the Buck: NIH Impact Pages

Updated Website Showcases NIH's Impact on Health, Science, and Society

Read all about the impacts of NIH research and more—including how NIH improves health, revolutionizes science, and serves society—on the recently refreshed and redesigned NIH Impact Pages.

NIH Hosts 29th Annual TYCTWD

Take Your Child to Work Day was celebrated on the main campus on April 27.

COVID–19 Timeline at NIH (March-April 2023)

COVID–19 Research and Activities at NIH

Highlights of the COVID–19-related activities that were going on at NIH in March and April 2023.