NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

The NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series, colloquially known as WALS, is the highest-profile lecture program at the NIH. Traditionally, lectures have occurred on most Wednesdays from September through June from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET in Lipsett auditorium, Building 10 on the NIH Bethesda campus.

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The Interface between Metabolism and Immunity within a Virus Microenvironment

Ileana M. Cristea, Ph.D.
Princeton University

George Khoury Lecture

Viral infections spread within complex and dynamic cellular microenvironments that shape the outcome of infection. As such, intra-cellular communication cascades, as well as communication between infected cells and cells in the surrounding tissue create a virus microenvironment. Here, we will describe some of our efforts to characterize communication at the intra- and inter-cellular levels.

Immunology From First Principles

Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.
Yale School of Medicine

William E. Paul Lecture

Ruslan Medzhitov was born in 1966 in Tashkent. He earned a Bachelor of Science at Tashkent State University before going on to pursue a PhD in biochemistry at Moscow State University. In 1992 he read an article by Charles Janeway about a hypothetical flip-flop triggered innate immunity. 

*Postponed*- The Emotional Brain: Role in Depression and Addiction

Huda Akil, Ph.D.
Michigan Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan

Huda Akil is a Syrian-American neuroscientist whose research has contributed to the understanding of the neurobiology of emotions, including pain, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Akil and her colleagues are best known for providing the first physiological evidence for a role of endorphins in the brain and demonstrating that endorphins are activated by stress and can cause pain inhibition.

This page was last updated on Monday, January 6, 2025