Beverly Gage came to the NIH with a condition that had never been observed before. A mysterious genetic mutation that caused her chronic joint pain and inflammation led her to Dr. Michael Ombrello, an expert in rare inflammatory diseases at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Where their paths cross shows us the current challenges of diagnosing, treating, and living with a disorder that is new to science.

The blood brain barrier keeps bad actors like toxins, viruses, and bacteria from entering the brain. But in the case of brain cancer when the danger is already inside, the blood brain barrier can work against a person’s health by shutting out the medications meant to eliminate the threat. Dr. Sadhana Jackson from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) works to figure out ways to selectively get cancer treatments through the blood brain barrier to treat patients...

Epidemiologists are the watchful guardians of public health. They collect and analyze data to track the status quo. When there are deviations, they crunch the numbers to understand who is getting sick, where, how, and why. Dr. Meredith Shiels is an epidemiologist and senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) studying cancer mortality rates to discern what populations might be at higher risk, figure out ways to mitigate those risks, and evaluate whether those measures are...

Despite negative consequences and the desire to stop, millions of people with compulsive behaviors can’t break the self-destructive cycles that disrupt their daily lives. Dr. Veronica Alvarez and Dr. Bruno Averbeck from the National Institute of Mental Health run the Center on Compulsive Behaviors (CCB) which brings together NIH scientists to understand what drives these repetitive and often detrimental behaviors. The CCB strives to decipher the neural circuitry that leads to compulsive...

Sugars, also referred to as carbohydrates, aren’t just substances we add to make coffee taste less bitter or food sweeter; they are an entire class of molecules necessary for life. The study of these carbohydrates is called glycobiology. Dr. John Hanover is a glycobiologist and the chief of the laboratory of cell and molecular biology at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). His work is advancing scientists’ understanding of the sugar structures...

None of the groundbreaking research taking place in the IRP would be possible with the hard work and dedication of trainees. While they work to support the NIH’s mission to turn discovery into health, the Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE) works to supports trainees in their professional pursuits. Dr. Sharon Milgram is the director of OITE and a strong proponent that good training begets good science. In this episode, she talks about the many ways OITE supports students and...

For Dr. Steve Holland, the mystery of why some people are more prone to disease is as much a curiosity as it is a calling. Dr. Holland is the scientific director and chief of the immunopathogenesis section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) where he searches for signs to explain differences in susceptibility to certain infections. In this episode, he discusses how the immune system can thwart its own defenses by producing antibodies that block the chemical...

NASA recently unveiled the first images of the cosmos taken by the James Webb Telescope. But while astronomers point their instruments up to peer into the stars, microscopists like Dr. Hari Shroff are focusing their gaze down to capture life on Earth. As chief of the Section on High Resolution Optical Imaging at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), Dr. Shroff engineers new microscopes to render the invisibly small in new and improved resolution.

Finding treatments for mental health conditions doesn't just deal with people who live with them. Healthy volunteers play a critical part in the science of understanding our brains and behavior. But what qualifies as "healthy" can vary across labs and skew how scientists interpret study results. Dr. Joyce Chung, the Deputy Clinical Director at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is changing that. She is creating a pool of vetted volunteers to bolster the integrity, efficiency, and...

Science is receptive to new information that can refine the theories we use to make sense of the world. Such is the case with Dr. Lauren Porter, a Stadtman investigator at the National Library of Medicine who is helping redefine the way we understand how proteins behave. She is looking at a new class of proteins that can change their structure and function much like the famous Transformer robots that morph into different machines. Understanding how these proteins switch their shape could help...

Centuries of selective breeding have given rise to a staggering variety of dog breeds, each with its own traits and behaviors. But shallow gene pools have also put some breeds at higher risk for disease. Dr. Elaine Ostrander runs the Dog Genome Project at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Her team includes Dr. Heidi Parker. Together, they are digging for clues to understand how genes code for dogs' diversity and disease. Clues that might also inform the health of their two-legged...

The annual flu vaccine is the best way to prevent yourself and others from getting sick. But sometimes the antigens the vaccine trains your body to fight are not similar enough to the strains of influenza circulating that year. This mismatch allows viruses to fly under the radar and spread undetected. It's a problem scientists hope to solve with a universal flu vaccine. Dr. Matthew Memoli is preparing to test a new vaccine candidate that could offer protection from more flu strains and for...

There is more to color than meets the eye. According to Dr. Bevil Conway, how we perceive color can inform how our brains receive, interpret, and generate knowledge about the world. Dr. Conway is a visual artist and a neuroscientist at the National Eye Institute. He is working to decode the neural basis of color. In a recent study, his lab mapped how different colors can stimulate different patterns of brain activity.

The success of mRNA vaccines against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has brought RNA biology into the limelight. Now, with the world's attention, what's next for this biomedical rising star? NIH scientists, Dr. Richard Maraia and Dr. Natasha Caplen, have long recognized the potential of RNA in improving human health. In this episode, they discuss the prospects of RNA biology and how their work could inform the future of RNA as an innovative class of medicine.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, racial and ethnic minority groups were disproportionately hit. The health inequities pulled at the seams of a system that was already frayed. Dr. Anna Nápoles works to close gaps in healthcare as the first Latina scientific director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). She is reducing the types of hurdles that once hindered her parents so that all populations can live long, healthy, and productive lives.

Pregnancy is by no means necessary for motherhood, but it is necessary for life. And it's no picnic. A pregnant person can experience complications like anemia, UTIs, hypertension, diabetes, and exhaustion. Maintaining maternal health during pregnancy can be challenging, but it is integral for the health of the fetus. Dr. Diana Bianchi is a physician-scientist and the director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where she works to improve care for the...

Small errors can quickly escalate to have large repercussions. When it comes to cancer, molecular changes to DNA can trigger chain reactions that cause cells to go awry and spread uncontrollably. Dr. Louis Staudt works to identify such changes, known as genetic mutations, and find ways to stop them from snowballing into a deadly disease. In this episode, Dr. Staudt recounts the story of how he differentiated subtypes of lymphomas to develop a treatment for patients as an early success of...

Nutrition is a contentious topic. It’s hard to tell fact from fiction. One day eggs are good for you, the next they have too much fat. But what about the keto craze? Doesn’t it say you should eat mostly fats? Fortunately, there are scientist like Dr. Kevin Hall who are working to debunk the myths and give us the real skinny on how the foods we eat affect our health. Most recently, Dr. Hall published a study that put two well-known diets head-to-head to see which led people to consume more...

Ketamine is often thought of as an illicit party drug—something people take for a momentary high. But it wasn’t designed to be a mind-altering drug. Originally, ketamine was developed as anesthetic to relieve temporary pain. And now it seems the drug can provide solace not just from physical distress. At the NIH, Dr. Carlos Zarate is investigating how ketamine can rapidly reduce depressive symptoms in people with treatment-resistant depression or bipolar depression, for whom other options...

In nature, strategic alliances can mean the difference between life and death. For humans, such vital partnerships exist between us and the trillions of microbes we unwittingly host in and on our bodies - together called the microbiome. Dr. Heidi Kong uses genomics to uncover the microbe-host interactions taking place all over our skin. Building on her work and a growing understanding of the skin microbiome, Dr. Ian Myles has developed a bacterial spray that improves eczema, an inflammatory...

Dr. Peter Bandettini spends a lot of time peering into people's heads. Not because he is clairvoyant, but because he is a biophysicist. Using functional MRI (fMRI), a revolutionary neuroimaging technique he helped pioneer in the '90s, Dr. Bandettini delves into the mysteries of the human brain. He is working to advance fMRI technology to parse out more information about the neural connections that are constantly and spontaneously active even when we think our minds are blank.

Time and again, diversity and inclusion initiatives have proven to boost productivity and overall well-being in the workplace. But despite countless studies and although there have been significant strides in recent history, the struggle to ensure equal opportunity persists. At the NIH, the Scientific Workforce Diversity Office is expanding recruitment and retention with Dr. Hannah Valantine as its first chief officer. She emphasizes how proper resources, mentorship, and community are...

In this episode, Dr. Richard Childs, a senior investigator and Clinical Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), recounts his experience using the antiviral drug remdesivir to treat patients with COVID-19 in one of the early hot zones of the pandemic. And Dr. Matthew Hall, biology group leader at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), explains the development of remdesivir and its newfound purpose in the battle against the novel coronavirus.

Vaccines protect us from a variety of infectious diseases and have become integral to public health. With a new threat at hand, scientists at the NIH swiftly developed a vaccine candidate against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The pre-clinical effort was driven in part by Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett. Dr. Corbett is a research fellow in the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Learn more about the VRC at...