Author: Jon Lorsch

Headshot of NIGMS Director Dr. Jon Lorsch.

As NIGMS director, Jon oversees the Institute’s research, training, and other programs. He’s committed to engaging the scientific community on a wide range of topics, including funding policies and trends, research evaluation, and workforce development and diversity.

Posts by Jon Lorsch

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Upcoming Advisory Council Meeting Includes Videocast and Public Comment Period Opportunities

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The National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council will have its fall meeting on September 19-20. For the session open to the public on the second day, we will be trying something new: a videocast. If you’re interested in watching the presentations and subsequent discussions—and learning more about what happens during advisory council meetings—tune in at http://videocast.nih.gov. The videocast will also be archived for a limited time. If enough people watch the meeting live or later, making the experiment successful, we will continue to videocast the open session of future advisory council meetings.

Previously, the Feedback Loop posted a description of advisory council roles. Council members provide the second level of peer review of grant applications, assess the merits of appeals of study section reviews and provide ideas and guidance on scientific and training priorities.

We have just posted the open session agenda, which includes a presentation by Council member and Yale University chemistry professor and chair Scott Miller on recent discoveries at the chemistry-biology interface; a presentation by NIH Principal Deputy Director Larry Tabak on data reproducibility in biomedical research; and another new feature of the meeting: a period reserved for public comment.

Before I started at NIGMS, I was able to attend the open session of the May Council meeting, where I heard very exciting presentations about recent developments in cryo-electron microscopy and pharmacogenomics, plus lively discussions about training and workforce development issues. Although I have only been to this one meeting so far, based on what I heard at it, I recommend that you try to catch some of the September meeting—I think you’ll find it interesting and informative.

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Looking Forward

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Having been a fan of Jeremy Berg’s Feedback Loop posts, it’s a great pleasure to be writing one myself. I am very excited to be at NIGMS, and I am honored to have the chance to lead this extraordinary institute.

Over the past year, whenever I asked anyone familiar with NIGMS what the best thing about it was, they all said the same thing: the people who work there. My own observations have been completely consistent with these assessments. The staff at NIGMS is an exceptional group, deeply committed to ensuring that the biomedical and behavioral research enterprise thrives. No one embodies this commitment better than Judith Greenberg, who has done an outstanding job over the past 2 years steering the Institute through challenging times. I hope you will join me in thanking her for everything she has done.

A key part of Jeremy’s legacy at NIGMS was increasing communication between the Institute and the scientific community. I intend to stay on this course, using the Feedback Loop as well as other mechanisms to catalyze discussions. I encourage you to join in these conversations and to suggest specific questions that you’d like to see us address.

I also intend to push forward the data collection and analysis efforts begun by Jeremy, both to help inform our discussions with the scientific community and to guide our policy decisions.

Among my first orders of business are to conduct a thorough analysis of NIGMS’ grant portfolio and to begin developing a new strategic plan for the Institute. The overall goal of these synergistic undertakings is to ensure that we are investing the taxpayers’ money in the most efficient and effective way possible. Science and society both evolve rapidly, and the structures and strategies that worked well in the past are not necessarily optimal for the future. We will be thinking broadly, using data to inform our analyses, and we will be seeking your ideas and innovations.

This would also be a good time for the scientific community to engage in a parallel process of introspection, examining topics ranging from how the research enterprise is organized to how the impact of scientists’ work is assessed and recognized through peer review and other mechanisms. The process could happen both at a local level—within your own institutions—and at a national one, perhaps led by the relevant scientific and academic societies.

I will always be happy to hear your thoughts and suggestions, either through this blog or directly at jon.lorsch@nih.gov. I am looking forward to working with you!