Special Exhibits on Resources for Intramural Research

The NIH Blood Bank will provide information on all the various types of donations available for patient care along with research opportunities that help investigators discover disease cures.

https://bloodbank.nih.gov

The NIAID OCICB Bioinformatics and Computational Biosciences Branch (BCBB) provides leadership in the fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. Serving the NIAID research community and inter-institute collaborators, the program provides expertise in the areas of biostatistics, microarray analysis, sequence analysis, structural biology, and phylogenetics. BCBB’s primary objectives are to:

• Become partners in the research process by applying bioinformatics solutions designed to generate new data or new hypotheses
• Utilize scientific and technological expertise for long term planning and preparedness through direct consultation with NIAID researchers
• Participate in the advancement of bioinformatics and computational biology by providing an infrastructure that includes high performance computing, development of scientific software, and licensing of scientific software

https://bioinformatics.niaid.nih.gov

The NIH Library is a leading biomedical research library dedicated to supporting the National Institutes of Health and select U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agencies. We provide access to a premier collection of resources to help you with your information and research needs:

• eJournals and eBooks – full-text articles and online access to current and core literature
• Print Collection – core physical collection focused on the primary research areas of NIH
• Databases – PubMed@NIH, Scopus, Web of Science, and more
• Research Tools – high-performance workstations, analysis tools and databases, and online information guides

Additionally, the NIH Library offers extensive services, provided by expert librarians and information specialists:

• 3D Printing – free 3D printing, classes, and software
• Bibliometrics – publication analysis tools, classes, and services; custom analyses of publications from labs, institutes, and grant portfolios
• Bioinformatics – classes, consultation, high performance workstations, and software
• Custom Information Solutions – website development, data management, information architecture, and project management
• Data Services – data management assistance and tools, classes, and workstations
• Document Delivery – request articles, books, and other materials
• Editing – help with manuscripts, book chapters, presentations, and more
• Informationists – personalized, on-site information services including citation management, collaboration on systematic reviews, and comprehensive searches
• Research Help – topical research at the basic, advanced, and systematic review level
• Technology Hub – cutting-edge technology exploration
• Training and Tutorials – free classes and sessions on a variety of topics
• Translations – translations of research publications, letters, and work-related documents

The NIH Library is located in Building 10 near the south entrance.

https://nihlibrary.nih.gov

The NLM offers many resources designed for the general public—patients, caregivers, students, and others who do not have prior medical or scientific expertise. NLM’s consumer-centered health resources provide authoritative and reliable information that can be used to educate, promote healthy lifestyles, inform health care decisions, and benefit the general health and wellbeing of the public.

Explore our online resource collection:

• MedlinePlus: https://medlineplus.gov/
• MedlinePlus en espanol: https://medlineplus.gov/spanish/
• NIH MedlinePlus the Magazine: https://medlineplus.gov/magazine/index.html
• Genetics Home Reference: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/
• HealthReach: https://healthreach.nlm.nih.gov/
• NLM Exhibition Program: https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/about/exhibition/
• AIDSource: https://aids.nlm.nih.gov/
• AIDSinfo: https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/
• LactMed Database on TOXNET: https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/newtoxnet/lactmed.htm
• Environmental Health Student Portal: https://kidsenvirohealth.nlm.nih.gov/
• ToxMystery: https://toxmystery.nlm.nih.gov

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/portals/public.html

Need to reach more patients for your study? The NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment offers free services to NIH intramural researchers. A team of innovative Recruitment Specialists support researchers to enroll patients and healthy volunteers. The office provides, at no-cost, strategic recruitment campaigns that include social media marketing, public service announcements, posters, and community outreach initiatives. We’ll focus on finding the patients so you can focus on the science for the patients. Get started today – stop by the table to talk to recruitment specialists and pick up an application to complete and submit to prpl@cc.nih.gov.

http://intranet.cc.nih.gov/recruit/opr.html

CREx: One-Stop-Search for Core Facilities and Research Services at NIH

Lakshmi Darbha, Ph.D., Scientific Program Manager (CREx), IRP, NIH

The NIH Intramural Research Program’s Collaborative Research Exchange (CREx) an online (https://nih.scientist.com), private marketplace offering a vast catalog of research services to facilitate communications between IRP scientists and internal cores as well as external vendors, enabling IRP scientists to easily engage with innovative resources and technologies. CREx currently includes more than 150 NIH IRP Cores, 25+ Trans-NIH Cores, and about 18,000 external scientific vendors. Users can expect to receive at least three quotes within a week of submitting a service request, resulting in cost savings due to this direct competition. There are plans to link CREx with POTS (Purchasing Online Tracking System) to further simplify the procurement process. The program is overseen by two Committees, namely the CREx Steering Committee (chaired by Dr. Glenn Merlino, NCI) and CREx User Committee (chaired by Dr. David Goldstein, NCI).

https://NIH.Scientist.com

The NIH Division of Environmental Protection will share information about sustainability initiatives at the NIH. The topics will include recycling, proper chemical disposal methods, mercury reduction, chemical waste solvent recovery, the NIH Free Stuff program, the NIH Green Labs program, the NIH Green Zone Newsletter and much more. Please stop by to learn how you can contribute to environmental stewardship at the NIH!

https://nems.nih.gov/Pages/default.aspx

NIDDK is updating its intramural website and needs your help. Swing by our table to walk through a mockup of our new design. Let us know what we’re doing right, and what we could improve.

CDD is a protein annotation resource that consists of a collection of well-annotated multiple sequence alignment models for ancient domains and full-length proteins. These are available as position-specific score matrices (PSSMs) for fast identification of conserved domains in protein sequences via RPS-BLAST. CDD content includes NCBI-curated domains, which use 3D-structure information to explicitly define domain boundaries and provide insights into sequence/structure/function relationships, as well as domain models imported from a number of external source databases (Pfam, SMART, COG, PRK, TIGRFAMs). Our resource is currently being used to maintain consistency and accuracy in the naming of proteins.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/cdd

The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), established in September 1990, is the first Public Health Service office dedicated specifically to promote women’s health research within and beyond the NIH scientific community. Congress assigned a far-reaching leadership role for ORWH by mandating that the ORWH Director advise the NIH Director and staff on matters relating to research on women’s health; strengthen and enhance research related to diseases, disorders, and conditions that affect women; ensure that research conducted and supported by NIH adequately addresses issues regarding women’s health; ensure that women are appropriately represented in biomedical and bio-behavioral research studies supported by the NIH; develop opportunities and support for recruitment, retention, reentry, and advancement of women in biomedical careers; and support research on women’s health issues. ORWH crafts and implements the NIH Strategic Plan for Women’s Health Research in partnership with NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) and co-funds research on the role of sex and gender on health. ORWH also collaborates with NIH ICs, the NIH Office of Extramural Research, and the NIH Office of Intramural Research to monitor adherence to NIH’s inclusion policies, which ensure that women and minorities are represented in NIH-supported clinical research. ORWH’s interdisciplinary research and career development initiatives stimulate research on sex and gender differences and provide career support to launch promising women’s health researchers. These programs set the stage for improved health for women and their families and career opportunities and advancement for a diverse biomedical workforce.

https://orwh.od.nih.gov/

The Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum (ONHM) documents, preserves, and interprets the history of the NIH. ONHM uses its collections of objects, photographs, oral histories, and documents to create various products explaining the achievements of NIH researchers and biomedical concepts. These products include physical and web exhibits and publications. ONHM also answers inquiries from the general public, government representatives, and other NIH staff and works with other NIH institutes and offices on projects such as the marking of anniversaries. Office staff also advise people on what to do with photographs, scientific instruments, and documents and works with other government entities to preserve them.

https://history.nih.gov/

NIH’s Center for Information Technology (CIT) is focused on managing NIH’s core IT infrastructure and providing enterprise-level information technology systems, solutions, and services to all 27 ICs and the NIH Office of the Director. The exhibit will offer visitors the opportunity to engage with the following CIT initiatives and offices:

• Biomedical Research Informatics Computing System (BRICS) enables the standardized collection of clinical data and improves data sharing among qualified researchers. This access, combined with the ability to query a larger amount of data than a single researcher could amass, promotes collaboration in the research community.
• High-Performance Computing (HPC) Services plans, manages, and supports supercomputing systems that enable the NIH research community to run large-scale applications.
• Network Security focuses on three key areas: reducing high risks in the NIH Information Technology environment, improving visibility of all devices supporting NIH or processing NIH data, and strengthening protections of all devices connected to the NIH network.
• Network Services provides a high-speed, robust computer network for the NIH community that connects facilities, both on and off campus to each other, to the internet, and to Internet2, an Internet Protocol that delivers network services for research and education.
  Network Services also provides secure Internet access through a Trusted Internet Connection (TIC).
• STRIDES (Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability) is a new initiative that harnesses the power of commercial cloud computing and provides NIH biomedical researchers access to the most advanced, cost-effective computational infrastructure, tools and services available. STRIDES launched with Google Cloud as its first industry partner and aims to reduce economic and technological barriers to accessing and computing on large biomedical sets to accelerate biomedical advances.
• Service Desk Services (SDS) is the main point of contact for NIH staff and individuals at some Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Operating Divisions (OpDivs) who need help solving computer or other technology problems or require additional IT services. There are two help desks within the SDS: The NIH IT Service Desk and the NIH Call Center. Service Desk Services provides customer-centric support via the web and phone in a timely and cost-effective manner. SDS leverages knowledge from across NIH to achieve faster resolution, support service initiatives for CIT and other NIH ICs, and work to address specific needs of ICs. Incidents and requests determined “non resolvable” or “cannot-be-fulfilled” by SDS are escalated to support partners at NIH ICs, or to other HHS OpDivs.
• Unified Communication and Collaboration (UCC) Services supports “anytime, anywhere” communication and collaboration tools, such as WebEx, which allow NIH staff to work from any office or remote site and engage with colleagues across campus, across the country, and around the world. UCC also provides mobile workforce enhancements that support communication and collaboration throughout NIH.

The Office of Research Services (ORS) provides a comprehensive portfolio of services to support the biomedical research mission of the NIH. Some examples of the diverse services ORS provides include laboratory safety, security and emergency response, veterinary resources, the NIH Library, events management, travel and transportation, visual arts and multimedia, relevant services for foreign scientists, and many more programs and employee services to enrich and enhance the NIH worksite.

https://www.ors.od.nih.gov/

As one of the nation’s premier health research agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to improving the health of our citizens. Consistent with this mission, NIH is dedicated to fostering the wellness of its employees. NIH provides its workforce with a full service Employee Assistance Program (EAP), staffed by professionals with licensure and certification in workplace wellness and behavioral health. EAP is free to all members of the NIH workforce and their immediate family members.

EAP provides personalized consultation, short-term counseling, referral and follow-up services to enhance personal and professional wellbeing. EAP is an ideal first stop for access to the vast resources of the NIH and the outside community. We also offer training and support to work groups to address issues that impact the work environment. EAP services are strictly confidential.

https://www.ors.od.nih.gov/sr/dohs/EAP/Pages/index.aspx

Virtual Reality (VR) is a technology that replaces a user's sensory inputs in order to simulate real or imaginary environments. When done correctly the user experiences “presence” in which they react to stimuli in the virtual world as if it was real. Thus within a virtual environment, a user may respond in ways that would be very difficult to elicit in reality. For example, virtual worlds can be created such that certain real world stimuli are missing or changed; such as stimuli related to pain, stress, gender, age, physical size, physical shape, distance and time. Another important VR topic is social VR in which two or more people located at different locations come together in a virtual world through the use of avatars. Some of the numerous uses for social VR are meetings, patient diagnosis, and therapy. Current VR avatars not only use your voice, but also copy your head and arm movements as well as duplicate your mouth movements and your facial expressions. Soon, all of your non-verbal communication will be replicated in virtual worlds. Other uses of VR are for productivity (virtual worlds containing numerous computer screens partially controlled by your gaze) and teaching (virtual worlds containing interactable and programmable objects). Lastly, there is augmented and mixed reality where virtual objects and virtual information is combined with reality. The potential uses for these technologies will eventually be larger than that of VR.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, March 30, 2021