Premier Intramural Science Event Back Bigger Than Ever

NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Research Dr. Nina Schor opens Research Festival 2023.

Photo:  Credit Marleen Van Den Neste

The 2023 NIH Research Festival certainly made up for lost time—essentially three years lost time, due to the Covid-19 pandemic that shuttered a lot of in-person work by NIH’s Intramural Research Program  (IRP) and halted the 33-year stretch of on-campus science festivals. 

“We are part of an incredible history,” said NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Research Dr. Nina Schor, tracing the festival back to its earliest iteration in 1986 through the last in-person event in 2019. Schor opened the first lecture session of the 2023 festival on Sept. 18, noting that this year’s version of the event “represents every corner of all of the NIH campuses. You will see the work of scientists at every level of expertise from every area of biomedical science. 

“You will have the opportunity to network with your colleagues, ask questions, to make suggestions, and generally just to schmooze with other people interested in biomedical science and its application to the health and wellbeing of people everywhere,” Schor continued. “That’s what makes this most exciting—the fact that it allows for interaction among people who might not otherwise get to see each other every day, the fact that it allows junior and senior members of our community and everyone in between to think together, talk together, have food together and to socialize around science and its application to the human condition.”

Over the course of five days, Research Festival 2023 held 12 workshops; four lecture sessions; a research resource vendor fair and exhibition; five poster sessions; a green labs fair; the 16th annual Philip S. Chen Jr. Distinguished Lecture on Innovation and Technology Transfer; the yearly salute to research animals; a National Academy of Sciences mini-symposium featuring NIH electees over the past two years; the G. Burroughs Mider Lecture, a special edition of the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series; a postdoc appreciation event; and an ice cream social.