Lei Departs NIGMS Division for Research Capacity Building

Dr. Ming Lei

Dr. Ming Lei left the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Division for Research Capacity Building in early August to become senior associate vice president for research and graduate education at West Virginia University (WVU) Health Sciences. He also joined the faculty in WVU’s School of Medicine as vice dean for research and professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and cell biology.

Lei had been part of the NIH community since 2008, serving in key positions at the National Cancer Institute before joining NIGMS in 2018. 

During his time at NIGMS, he led numerous initiatives to enhance existing programs and to create new ones, including the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Regional Entrepreneurship Development Program and expanded opportunities for IDeA states to build capacity for clinical and translational research. 

During the Covid-19 pandemic, he created grant programs to support vaccine hesitancy research and variant surveillance studies, and to document patient outcomes in underserved communities. 

Additionally, he led NIGMS’s participation in the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) program, a $500 million NIH-wide initiative to understand and reduce morbidity and mortality disparities for vulnerable and underserved populations disproportionately affected by Covid-19.