NIH Director’s Lecture

The Director’s Lectures feature leading researchers from around the globe. Nominated by scientists and interest groups throughout NIH, the speakers are specifically approved by the NIH Director. There are typically three NIH Director’s Lectures per year.

NIH Director's Lecture with Kevan Shokat, Ph.D. "Overcoming The Undruggable Nature Of The Most Common Human Oncogene K-Ras"

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Kevan Shokat, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Kevan Shokat is a chemist who discovers drugs against some of the most common drivers of human cancers. He is best known for targeting a mutation that drives more than 1 in 10 lung cancers, opening up a new arena of cancer treatment discovery. The target, K-Ras, is the most common driver of cancer, and was considered “undruggable” by most cancer researchers after 40 years of failed attempts to block its function. Dr. Shokat’s discovery of a K-Ras blocker broke through this decades-old barrier and threw open the doors to a new class of cancer treatments.

Objectives:

Bitten: Why Are Some People More Attractive to Mosquitoes Than Others?

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Leslie B. Vosshall, Ph.D., HHMI

Leslie Vosshall wants to understand how environmental cues and internal physiology work together to guide complex animal behaviors. Vosshall and her team study this problem in mosquitoes and humans, applying approaches in neurobiology, behavior, genetics, and genomics. Vosshall’s team uses CRISPR/Cas9 genome-editing tools to advance understanding of how the mosquitoes that spread dengue and yellow fever integrate sensory cues to hunt their human hosts.

The Secret Life of Introns

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Tracy Johnson, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Regulation of gene expression is crucial for every function carried out by the cell, from cell growth and proliferation to the ability of the cell to respond to its ever-changing environment. Hence, understanding cellular function and dysfunction is dependent upon deciphering these gene regulatory mechanisms. This is particularly challenging in the case of eukaryotic genes, which are often interrupted by long stretches of noncoding sequences (introns). These are removed from the newly synthesized RNA, and the remaining sequences (exons) are ligated together to form a mature messenger RNA.

The Future of Non-invasive Functional Imaging in the Era of Big Data

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Damien Fair, Ph.D., University of Minnesota

The Fair laboratory focuses on mechanisms and principles that underlie the developing brain. The majority of this work uses functional MRI and resting state functional connectivity MRI to assess typical and atypical populations. Dr. Fair is the co-director of the new Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain.

Neurobiology of Social Behavior Circuits

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Catherine Dulac, Ph.D., Harvard University

Social interactions are essential for animals to survive, reproduce, raise their young. Over the years, my lab has attempted to decipher the unique characteristics of social recognition: what are the unique cues that trigger distinct social behaviors, what is the nature and identity of social behavior circuits, how is the function of these circuits different in males and females and how are they modulated by the animal physiological status?

Towards a Deeper and More Human-centric Medicine

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Eric Topol, M.D., Scripps Research Institute

The subtype of AI, deep learning, has recently been used for a variety of medical applications, particularly image interpretation, across many disciplines. It is early, but these deep neural networks have considerable transformative potential to promote accuracy, streamline workflow, synthesize data for both clinicians and patients, promote patient autonomy, and greatly enhance the patient–clinician relationship. To date, prospective validation studies are quite limited, and we need to confront such vital issues of how AI can unintendedly worsen inequities and discrimination.

On the Design of Bionic Limbs: The Science of Tissue-Synthetic Interface

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NIH Director’s Lecture
Hugh Herr, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Professor Herr’s research program seeks to advance technologies that promise to accelerate the merging of body and machine, including device architectures that resemble the body’s musculoskeletal design, actuator technologies that behave like muscle, and control methodologies that exploit principles of biological movement. His methods encompass a diverse set of scientific and technological disciplines, from the science of biomechanics and biological movement control to the design of biomedical devices for the treatment of human physical disability.

Immune Checkpoint Blockade in Cancer Therapy: Historical Perspective, New Opportunities, and Prospects for Cures

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NIH Director’s Lecture
James P. Allison, Ph.D., MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas

Dr. James Allison is the Chair of the Department of Immunology, the Vivian L. Smith Distinguished Chair in Immunology, Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Research, and the Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has spent a distinguished career studying the regulation of T cell responses and developing strategies for cancer immunotherapy. He earned the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with Dr.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 10, 2021