Gary H. Gibbons, MD, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), has lived a “blessed life.” Molded by a hardscrabble family history, supported by exceptional mentors and educational opportunities, and propelled by an interest in all things science, Gibbons, 58, came of age in an era when new doors were opening to African Americans. In a journey that has taken him to Princeton University, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham & Women’s Hospital—and faculty positions at Stanford University, Harvard, and Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, where he was founding director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute—Gibbons never lost sight of his desire to help people like those he grew up with, working-class African Americans in the inner-city Germantown section of his native Philadelphia. Gibbons, elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2007, has devoted his research career to probing the intricacies of blood pressure regulation, vascular remodeling, and disparities in the cardiovascular health of minorities. As NHLBI director since 2012, Gibbons oversees the third largest institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with a budget of more than $3 billion. Prodded to discuss his career achievements, Gibbons recounts something his mother always told him: Make sure your humility matches your ability. He says he leaves his significance to others to judge. Gary H. Gibbons (Photo courtesy of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.) I was the youngest of three, and my parents were schoolteachers. I grew up in an era in which I was part of a sort of vanguard cohort—some would call us the Joshua Generation—in which, growing up in inner-city Philadelphia, I was part of the first group of children who was bused as part of desegregation. That happened when I was in third grade, I believe, bused literally across the tracks to a …