National Institutes Of Health Director Research Articles

President Biden Chooses Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, to Lead the NIH

President Biden Chooses Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, to Lead the NIH

Transitions in development - an interview with Evgeny Kvon.

Evgeny Kvon is an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) in the Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, USA. His lab studies non-coding regulatory DNA and its mechanistic role in the control of gene expression to understand more about development, disease and evolution. Last year, Evgeny received the National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. We spoke to Evgeny over Zoom to learn more about his career and the silver lining to starting a lab during the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Anti-science conspiracies pose new threats to US biomedicine in 2023.

Anti-science conspiracies pose new threats to US biomedicine in 2023.

Green Day: An Interview with NHGRI Director Eric Green

Green Day: An Interview with NHGRI Director Eric Green

Appoint a new NIH director, now

Why has President Biden's administration been staggering when it comes to key scientific appointments? Most noticeably, there has been a failure to confirm a new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since Francis Collins stepped down a year ago. It took nearly a year to nominate the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Robert Califf. And regrettably, Biden began his presidency with the nomination of geneticist Eric Lander as the first science adviser to the president and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). A year later, Lander resigned in disgrace because of abusive behavior toward staff. Although recent appointments provide some confidence [including Monica Bertagnolli as director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Joni Rutter as director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and Arati Prabhakar as the new director of OSTP], the most high-profile biomedical job in the United States-NIH director-remains unfilled.

Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Health.

Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Health.

Introduction to the Methods for Assessing the Impact of Screening in Childhood on Health Outcomes Supplement.

* Abbreviation: NIH — : National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a special interest group on childhood screening that is staffed jointly by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Office of Disease Prevention in the Office of the NIH Director. After a series of internal meetings, the special interest group decided that the most compelling issue to tackle was the lack of an evidence base to support screening recommendations for exposures, behaviors, and conditions that are part of current routine pediatric care. To stimulate methodologic innovation to address this problem, the NIH convened an in-person workshop in Bethesda, Maryland, on May 9–10, 2019, entitled “Methods for Assessing the Impact of Screening in Childhood on Health Outcomes.” Workshop objectives included (1) conceptualizing the universe of child health outcomes pertinent to screening; (2) identifying methodologic challenges in assessing child health outcomes; (3) discussing novel and rigorous approaches to assessing these outcomes; … Address correspondence to Diana W. Bianchi, MD, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Building 31, Room 2A03, 31 Center Dr, Bethesda, MD 20892. E-mail: diana.bianchi{at}nih.gov

Sean Wu.

Sean Wu.

Rehabilitation research at the National Institutes of Health moving the field forward (executive summary).

Approximately 53 million Americans live with a disability. For decades, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been conducting and supporting research to discover new ways to minimize disability and enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. After the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, NIH established the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, with the goal of developing and implementing a rehabilitation research agenda. Currently, 17 institutes and centers at NIH invest more than $500 million per year in rehabilitation research. Recently, the director of NIH, Francis Collins, appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate the status of rehabilitation research across institutes and centers. As a follow-up to the work of that panel, NIH recently organized a conference, "Rehabilitation Research at NIH: Moving the Field Forward." This report is a summary of the discussions and proposals that will help guide rehabilitation research at NIH in the near future. (PsycINFO Database Record

Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health: Moving the Field Forward (Executive Summary).

Approximately 53 million Americans live with a disability. For decades, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been conducting and supporting research to discover new ways to minimize disability and enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. After the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, NIH established the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, with the goal of developing and implementing a rehabilitation research agenda. Currently, 17 institutes and centers at NIH invest more than $500 million per year in rehabilitation research. Recently, the director of NIH, Francis Collins, appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate the status of rehabilitation research across institutes and centers. As a follow-up to the work of that panel, NIH recently organized a conference, "Rehabilitation Research at NIH: Moving the Field Forward." This report is a summary of the discussions and proposals that will help guide rehabilitation research at NIH in the near future.

Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health: Moving the Field Forward (Executive Summary).

Approximately 53 million Americans live with a disability. For decades, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been conducting and supporting research to discover new ways to minimize disability and enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. After the passage of the American With Disabilities Act, the NIH established the National Center for Medical Research with the goal of developing and implementing a rehabilitation research agenda. Currently, a total of 17 institutes and centers at NIH invest more than $500 million per year in rehabilitation research. Recently, the director of NIH, Dr Francis Collins, appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate the status of rehabilitation research across institutes and centers. As a follow-up to the work of that panel, NIH recently organized a conference under the title Rehabilitation Research at NIH: Moving the Field Forward. This report is a summary of the discussions and proposals that will help guide rehabilitation research at NIH in the near future.This article is being published almost simultaneously in the following six journals: American Journal of Occupational Therapy, American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, Physical Therapy, and Psychology. Citation information is as follows: Frontera WR, Bean JF, Damiano D, et al. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2017;97(4):393-403.

Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health:: Moving the Field Forward (Executive Summary).

Approximately 53 million Americans live with a disability. For decades, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been conducting and supporting research to discover new ways to minimize disability and enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. After the passage of the American With Disabilities Act, the NIH established the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research with the goal of developing and implementing a rehabilitation research agenda. Currently, a total of 17 institutes and centers at NIH invest more than $500 million per year in rehabilitation research. Recently, the director of NIH, Dr Francis Collins, appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate the status of rehabilitation research across institutes and centers. As a follow-up to the work of that panel, NIH recently organized a conference under the title “Rehabilitation Research at NIH: Moving the Field Forward.” This report is a summary of the discussions and proposals that will help guide rehabilitation research at NIH in the near future.This article is being published almost simultaneously in the following six journals: American Journal of Occupational Therapy, American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, Physical Therapy, and Rehabilitation Psychology. Citation information is as follows: Frontera WR, Bean JF, Damiano D, et al. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2017;97(4):393–403.

Mechanisms of Vascular Endothelial Dysfunction: The Problem with Sugar and Artificial Sweeteners

As diabetes becomes a growing worldwide heath concern there has been an increased awareness of environmental factors like diet that are contributing to the disease. In diabetic patients, a major causal factor contributing to progression of the disease is hyperglycemia. While we know that early intensive glycemic control reduces the risk of cardiovascular complications in humans and rodent models, there is a large gap in studies of the etiology of hyperglycemia‐induced alterations in the disease. To combat high sugar diets that contribute to diabetes and subsequent hyperglycemia, non‐caloric artificial sweeteners have become one of the most utilized food additives worldwide due to their consideration as a low caloric substitute. However, supporting scientific data as to the safety of these non‐caloric artificial sweeteners is limited and controversial. The negative implications of consuming a high sugar diet on overall health have long been linked to diabetes, obesity, and resulting systemic health problems; however, it was not until recently that the negative impact of consuming artificial sweeteners in the place of sugar had been increasingly recognized. This study focused on research to decipher the underlying molecular mechanisms of vascular dysfunction influenced by high glucose and artificial sweetener diets using a combination of high‐throughput molecular analyses and in vitro cell culture models. Initial characterization of the effects of hyperglycemia on in vitro tube formation assays exhibited impaired endothelial phenotypes (p<0.05). PNGaseF enzymatic removal of endothelial cell surface glycosylations was able to restore the healthy tube formation phenotypes (p<0.05) suggesting glycosylation plays an important role in high glucose induced vascular dysfunction. Further glycoproteomic analyses revealed 87 proteins significantly increased in N‐glycosylation and 143 in O‐glycosylation (p<0.05) on the endothelial cell surface following normal (4.5 mM) and high (25 mM) glucose treatments, including important endothelial cell surface receptors, a diverse array of ion channels, and immune regulators. The non‐caloric artificial sweetener aspartame also exhibited impaired endothelial phenotypes during an in vitro tube formation assay (p<0.05). However, insulin signaling gene expression analysis revealed global pathway downregulation as a result of aspartame, a phenomenon that was not observed with the high glucose treatment. Overall, results of this study suggest unique mechanisms of vascular impairment resulting from exposure to high glucose and artificial sweeteners that provide insights into their contribution to the onset and progression of diabetes and obesity.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (K01DK105043 to BRH) and through the Mayo Clinic Metabolomics Resource Core pilot grant program (U24DK100469) originating from the National Institutes of Health Director's Common Fund.

Rehabilitation Research at the National Institutes of Health: Moving the Field Forward (Executive Summary)

Approximately 53 million Americans live with a disability. For decades, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been conducting and supporting research to discover new ways to minimize disability and enhance the quality of life of people with disabilities. After the passage of the American With Disabilities Act, the NIH established the National Center for Medical Research with the goal of developing and implementing a rehabilitation research agenda. Currently, a total of 17 institutes and centers at NIH invest more than $500 million per year in rehabilitation research. Recently, the director of NIH, Dr Francis Collins, appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel to evaluate the status of rehabilitation research across institutes and centers. As a follow-up to the work of that panel, NIH recently organized a conference under the title Rehabilitation Research at NIH: Moving the Field Forward. This report is a summary of the discussions and proposals that will help guide rehabilitation research at NIH in the near future.This article is being published almost simultaneously in the following six journals: American Journal of Occupational Therapy, American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, Physical Therapy, and Psychology. Citation information is as follows: Frontera WR, Bean JF, Damiano D, et al. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2017;97(4):393-403.

Cell scientist to watch – Lei Stanley Qi

Originally from China, Lei (Stanley) Qi obtained his first degree in physics and mathematics at the Tsinghua University. He then moved to University of California, Berkeley, where he graduated with an MA in physics and worked in the laboratory of Steven Chu, Noble Laureate in Physics (1997), before switching fields to pursue a PhD in bioengineering in the laboratories of Adam Arkin and Jennifer Doudna. Stanley's work earned him the National Institutes of Health Director's Early Independence Award, which allowed him to start his own laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, as a Systems Biology Fellow without a postdoctoral training period. In 2014, he moved to Stanford, where he is now Assistant Professor at the Department of Bioengineering and of Chemical and Systems Biology, and is affiliated with Stanford Chemistry, Engineering and Medicine for Human Health (ChEM-H). He invented the use of the CRISPR–dCas9 system for transcriptional modulation and genome imaging. His current research is focused on developing new tools and technologies for genome editing and transcriptional modulation, manipulating molecular networks to understand fundamental principles of biology and engineering cells to exhibit desired behaviors, such as teaching immune cells to recognise and eliminate cancers.

The origin and implementation of the Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training programs: an NIH common fund initiative.

Recent national reports and commentaries on the current status and needs of the U.S. biomedical research workforce have highlighted the limited career development opportunities for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees in academia, yet little attention is paid to preparation for career pathways outside of the traditional faculty path. Recognizing this issue, in 2013, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund issued a request for application titled "NIH Director's Biomedical Research Workforce Innovation Award: Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST)." These 5-yr 1-time grants, awarded to 17 single or partnering institutions, were designed to develop sustainable approaches to broaden graduate and postgraduate training, aimed at creating training programs that reflect the range of career options that trainees may ultimately pursue. These institutions have formed a consortium in order to work together to develop, evaluate, share, and disseminate best practices and challenges. This is a first report on the early experiences of the consortium and the scope of participating BEST programs. In this report, we describe the state of the U.S. biomedical workforce and development of the BEST award, variations of programmatic approaches to assist with program design without BEST funding, and novel approaches to engage faculty in career development programs. To test the effectiveness of these BEST programs, external evaluators will assess their outcomes not only over the 5 yr grant period but also for an additional 10 yr beyond award completion.

A new vision for the National Library of Medicine

This summer, with the retirement of Donald A.B. Lindberg, MD, after 31 years from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institutes of Health director, Francis Collins, MD, PhD, charged the NLM working group to articulate a new, strategic vision for the NLM. The NLM has been a tremendous supporter of informatics, and this new report provides insight into the role that NLM will play in the future. It articulates a vision for how the NLM can continue to be a trustworthy source of biomedical data and information, an advocate for open science, a promoter of the next generation of data scientists, a protector of the legacy of the past, and a vital partner for those who are generating biomedical knowledge for the future. The NLM working group put out a request for information (RFI) (see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/nih\_rfi\_nlm\_working\_group.html) and received over 650 responses both domestically and internationally.1 The training programs and programs that provided access to medical information such as PubMed …

How to improve the overall quality of cardiac morphometric data

By the mid-1990s, experts realized that drugs leading to improved ventricular remodeling were doing something remarkable in cardiac patients. The "age of cardiac remodeling" had begun. This created an experimental need for high-quality assessment of changes in cardiac tissue composition, including myocyte shape, myocardial fibrosis/collagen, and vascular remodeling. Many working in the field today have little or no training related to recognition of fixation artifacts or common errors associated with quantitative morphology. Unfortunately, such skills had become somewhat of a lost art during the ages of cardiac physiology in the mid-20th century and molecular biology, gaining prominence by the mid-1970s. Consequently, cardiac remodeling studies today are often seriously flawed to the point where data are not reproducible and subsequent researchers may be chasing the molecular basis of a nonexistent or erroneous phenotype. The current unacceptably high incidence of irreproducible data is a serious waste of time and resources as recently noted in comments by the National Institutes of Health director. The goal of this "how to" article is to share some lessons I have learned during nearly 40 years of assessing morphological changes in the heart. It is possible for any laboratory to routinely publish highly reproducible morphological data that stand the test of time and contribute to our fundamental knowledge of cardiac remodeling and the molecular mechanisms that drive it.

A global health strategy to capitalize on proven-effective interventions for heart, lung, and blood diseases.

Global health research has historically been a high priority endeavor at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and currently represents one of the five priorities of the NIH Director.1 Recognizing that science and disease have no national borders, NIH has encouraged its Institutes, Centers, and Offices to work with the Fogarty International Center to support biomedical research and research training across the globe.2, 3 In this effort, many Institutes including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, National Cancer Institute, National Eye Institute and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and others, have established or expanded their global health programs. More recently, the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) produced a report calling for a more robust US engagement in global health, especially for non-communicable diseases (NCDs).4, 5 In the report, a task force commissioned by CFR analyzed the case for increased U.S. focus on NCDs by examining countries that received significant U.S. health assistance and found that the premature burden of death and disability in many of these countries was heavily NCD-related.5 The CFR finds two compelling global health interests that justify increasing the US engagement with NCDs. First, NCDs undermine the effectiveness of existing U.S. global health investments. Second, NCDs represent an opportunity for the U.S. government to build on existing U.S. global health platforms that can achieve sustainable reductions in premature death and disability that disproportionately affect the poor.

NIH policy supports broader sharing of genomic data, strengthens informed-consent rules: research participants must give consent for secondary sharing, even if data are de-identified.

NIH policy supports broader sharing of genomic data, strengthens informed-consent rules: research participants must give consent for secondary sharing, even if data are de-identified.