Message from Constantine A. Stratakis, MD, D(med)Sci
- Constantine A. Stratakis, MD, D(med)Sci, Scientific Director
- Brenda R. Hanning, Deputy Director, Liaison and Training
- Jeanne Jones, Scientific Program Analyst
- Sara K. King, Scientific Program Analyst
- Jessica Rigby, Administrative Support Specialist
Our 2016 annual report of the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is now available to you electronically, either on the web, your cell phones, or your tablets, at: annualreport.nichd.nih.gov.
We invite you to look through the report site, to review our medical and scientific discoveries of the past year, to see what work a colleague may currently be engaged in, or to identify a laboratory with which you may wish to collaborate or to which to refer a student. For potential postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and clinical fellows, the report is fully searchable. It offers you an introduction to a panoply of research endeavors in NICHD’s DIR.
NICHD intramural investigators comprise a broad array of basic, translational, and clinical researchers. Our work is reflected in our mission statement:
“To plan and conduct the Institute’s laboratory and clinical research programs to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems through basic, clinical, and population-based research and determine how to apply such knowledge to illuminate developmental origins of health and disease and help ensure that women and men have good reproductive health, that children are born healthy, and that people develop to live healthy and productive lives.”
We use a range of model systems in the areas of developmental biology, molecular and cellular biology, neurosciences, structural biology, imaging, behavior, and biophysics. Investigators take advantage of our resources in a 19,000–tank zebrafish core facility and work with several other animal models, from fruit flies to rats and mice, and are supported by a wide array of core services, including imaging, proteomics, and molecular genomics. Each investigator participates in at least one, and typically more, affinity groups, which are team-based and future-oriented—to build on thematic interests while responding to rapidly shifting scientific priorities as new knowledge is uncovered.
I invite you to read through the selection of our Clinical Research Protocols listed in this report (under the above-mentioned URL) and to consider how we may collaborate, through the NIH U01 grant mechanism at the NIH Clinical Research Center). If we combine expertise, whether on rare disorders or the most persistent problems affecting human health, and take advantage of our NIH infrastructure and our patient population, the support of this program can lead to our next new success in therapeutics, and/or the next miracle drug.
The DIR researchers whose names appear in this publication are committed to training the next generation of scientists and physician scientists; they include tenure-track investigators who have recently joined us and accomplished investigators who continue to forge new scientific paths. Link to their reports on the web to learn about their work in 2016. I also invite you to reach out to me, at stratakc@mail.nih.gov, with your ideas and proposals for collaborative initiatives that we may undertake together.
Our drive and purpose, on behalf of the American public and the international community, is to strive to uncover fundamental answers to questions underlying our existence, whether they be in the basic science that underpins life or in the complexities of human health and disease. This is the privilege of and responsibility to our chosen professions.
Sincerely yours,
Constantine A. Stratakis, MD, D(med)Sci
Scientific Director, NICHD, NIH
