Dear Research Advocate, “We are in the profession that aims to come up with answers. We have a mission and a noble one. I often like to point out while our initials are NIH….in circumstances like this we’re the National Institutes of Hope. While fear, anxiety, and stress are all around us, hope can be contagious.” —Francis Collins, MD, PhD Earlier today, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), joined us on our alliance member call to provide an overview of NIH’s unprecedented Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) , a partnership between industry and governmental leaders working to speed COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Dr...

On February 27, a few weeks before the country was gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Tanya Petrossian gave birth to a healthy baby boy. During her grueling labor, what stunned nurses and doctors was her high pain tolerance. But Dr. Petrossian is no stranger to pain. Since adolescence and the onset of menstruation, she has endured severe pain for more than a decade. Doctors gave her conflicting opinions on the cause, from ovarian cancer to appendicitis. She finally was diagnosed and treated on Feb. 27, 2017—3 years to the day before giving birth. Her diagnosis: Endometriosis. The inflammatory disease is estimated to affect about 10% of reproductive-age women around the world—about 190...

Dear Research Advocate, Yesterday, we hosted a very popular webinar, Understanding the Landscape of COVID-19 Vaccine and Treatment R&D , featuring former FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan, Director of the Duke-Margolis Health Policy Center; Stefano Bertuzzi, CEO of the American Society for Microbiology; and former CDC Director Julie Gerberding, Executive Vice President and Chief Patient Officer, Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy and Population Health at Merck. All three are working tirelessly to combat COVID-19. In speaking about current public-private research efforts, Dr. Gerberding emphasized: “This is the time we need the most openness, the most transparency, and the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a jarring challenge to public health and economies worldwide. Even as we all navigate the crisis and its effect on personal health, professional lives and larger national strategies, I am heartened by the application of science in the public health response to the crisis, and inspired by the ways in which the genetics and genomics community is applying its knowledge and resources to play its part in addressing the pandemic. Time and again, health crises remind us of the importance of public funding for biomedical research, and the COVID-19 pandemic provides us with yet another example. Fundamental to combatting the virus is tracing its origin and understanding...