May–June 2024 | NIH Intramural Research Program

President Biden Requests $12B for Research on Women’s Health

NIH Is Poised to Perform

President Biden signed the most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken to advance women’s health research on March 18. His Executive Order, and a State of the Union request to Congress for a “bold, transformative investment” of $12 billion, comes on the heels of a November Presidential Memorandum that charged every federal agency engaged in health research to develop a plan for advancing women’s health research.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Conference Explores New Frontiers in Liquid Biopsies

When NIH scientists use the phrase “blood, sweat, and tears,” they mean it. Literally. In fact, we can join them on May 13–14 to learn more about all the ways in which scientists at NIH and around the world are exploring blood, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids as liquid biopsies to travel to new frontiers for human health and disease.

From the Deputy Director for Intramural Research

Technologies: They Work for Us (Not the Other Way Around)

This issue of the NIH Catalyst is about emerging technologies. They are alluring and exciting and filled with potential. But they are tools, and their value is not intrinsic. What they enable us to understand, and what we do with that understanding, are what matters.

A Remarkable Mechanism of Pain Insensitivity

Wife–Husband Dinner Conversations Open Up New Pathway to Combat Pain

NIMH Clinical and Translational Neuroscience Branch Chief Karen Berman began seeing alarming reports from parents about their children in a clinical trial she was conducting. The children appeared to be insensitive to pain. As chance would have it, Berman is married to an NIH pain researcher, Michael Iadarola, a senior research scientist in the CC’s Department of Perioperative Medicine. Over many an evening dinner and drive to campus, they would talk about this rare pain insensitivity. Together, they are paving the way to new discoveries.

Keeping the "I" in DEIA for AI, ML

Keeping Diversity, Inclusion Top of Mind When It Comes to AI, ML in Health Care

Just as humans read to gain knowledge, so too does AI. That knowledge then can be used to train machines to consume large datasets and use those datasets to create predictive models on which we base our science. Despite this potential, experts also warn that AI and ML, if not properly vetted, could inadvertently amplify health disparities.

Escaping the Bounds of Biology

Computational and Experimental Techniques Converge to Reshape Research

Scientists are merging new experimental lab techniques with synthetic methods like artificial intelligence and machine learning. It’s a synergistic approach that is accelerating our understanding of human health and disease and building completely new biology to tackle difficult diseases. Read about a sample of these tantalizing technologies being used across NIH and beyond.

Colleagues: Recently Tenured

Meet your recently tenured colleagues: Lauren Atlas (NCCIH, NIMH, NIDA), Aaron Cypess (NIDDK), Rasika Mathias (NIAID), Fasil Tekola-Ayele (NICHD), Anish Thomas (NCI-CCR), and Achim Werner (NIDCR).

NCATS Taps Matthew Hall as New Scientific Director

Translational Scientist Champions Team-based Approach, NIH-wide Partnerships

Meet NCATS’ new scientific director, Matthew Hall, who will lead the Division of Preclinical Innovation (DPI). Hall began his new role in January and is committed to strengthening the center’s role as a world-class translational science hub.

The Closer

On Closing Labs and Rolling with the Changes

Anna Trivett, an NCI technical laboratory manager has seen a lot of changes. She was among the recipients of a group 2021 NCI Award for their role in NIH efforts to safely reopen intramural research facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet perhaps ironically, Trivett is better known for something opposite of that—closing labs due to retirements, reassignments, or reorganizations.

Being There

A Case for In-Person Lecture Attendance

In a world of virtual meetings and remote lectures, chance encounters are rare these days, aside from with your IT support. And that’s a problem. Although there’s no way to quantify this, we are likely missing out on all those people, places, and things in your peripheral vision, and in front of your face, that spur new ideas and spark the insights so critical to the advancement of science.

Research Briefs

Read about scientific advances and discoveries by NIH intramural scientists: AI-assisted retinal imaging; gene therapy slows pediatric neuropathy; proteins enable immune cells to locate specific microbes; targeting the dark side of an influenza virus protein; multi-omic profiling of lymphoma tumors; mystery enzyme that breaks down bilirubin identified

NIHers Race to Raise Awareness for National Minority Health Month

The NIH community came together on April 11 on the front lawn of Building 1 on the Bethesda campus to participate in the NIH Minority Health Walk/Run/Roll 5K event.

Announcements

News about lectures, symposia, and more.

Announcements: Kudos

Congratulations to: colleagues elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and Association of American Physicians; NIH recipients of the 2024 HHS Departmental Awards; workers on the new Comparative Medicine Center at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories; new NIH members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Photographic Moment

Solar Eclipse

This page was last updated on Monday, May 6, 2024