The 17th HHS assistant secretary for health Adm. Rachel Levine paid NIH a visit on June 22 in honor of Pride Month. She is the first openly transgender individual to serve in a Senate-confirmed position and the first ASH who is transgender. In addition, she is the first openly transgender 4-star officer across any of the uniformed services and the first female 4-star officer to lead the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci chatted virtually with the NIH Record about his recent bout with Covid-19 and what lies ahead to contain the virus he continues to battle through science, counsel and guidance.
NIH is a talented, productive, and resilient agency because of its diversity, said NIH acting director Dr. Lawrence Tabak, during a June 29 virtual Town Hall on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA). “Diversity fuels our creativity and drives our innovation,” he said.
After morning meetings with NIH leaders, Adm. Rachel Levine, HHS assistant secretary for health, was the featured speaker at an event titled “Together Towards Discovery: How Our Intersecting LGBTQIA+ Identities Impact Our NIH Work.”
On the Cover
Colorized structure of a prototype for a universal flu vaccine. The nanoparticle is a hybrid of a protein scaffold (blue) and eight influenza hemagglutinin proteins on the surface (yellow). The hemagglutinin was specifically engineered to display antibody binding sites common to all human influenza subtypes. The particle designed by Jeffrey Boyington of the NIH Vaccine Research Center (VRC) has been shown to be an effective immunogen in mice and ferrets (VRC). 3D structure of the particle was determined by cryo-electron microscopy by John Gallagher and Audray Harris of NIAID’s Laboratory of Infectious Diseases.