The Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) met on December 14 and 15, 2023 for two full days of updates from the Office of the Director, Institute leaders, and working groups. In her first meeting as NIH Director, having been sworn in on December 6th, Dr. Monica Bertagnolli shared her vision for NIH and goals for her time in this role. This was also the first meeting for committee member Dr. Brian Mustanski, Northwestern University, a psychologist by training and director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing (ISGMH).
Dr. Bertagnolli outlined several goals including bolstering clinical trials to be more equitable, efficient, accessible, and responsive; leveraging opportunities for AI, and building a learning health system that incorporates knowledge into practice and thinking deeply about implementation science. She noted that she talks a lot about the application of science, stating for the record that this will not detract from the NIH commitment to basic science. Also of interest to FABBS scientists, Dr. Bertagnolli underscored that it is not the National Institutes of Disease but of ‘Health’. She identified a key challenge for NIH – the decline in trust in science and the need to directly engage people in science, saying that NIH will need ‘…deep behavioral work with the community and [to] think about the humans. We need new sorts of researchers from behavioral and social sciences…’ During the meeting, Dr. Bertagnolli invited ACD members to be ‘brave and bold’ and to challenge her and her NIH colleagues to make NIH the most effective as possible.
In her update, Dr. Bertagnolli mentioned three current initiatives on which FABBS submitted comments:
- Efforts to support people with disabilities through new designations of population with health disparities, new research programs, and updates to NIH mission are actions to ensure inclusion. NIH is currently reviewing 488 responses – [see “FABBS Comments on the NIH Mission Statement”].
- Simplification of grant review criteria to find the best and most innovative science with greatest potential and reduce bias for senior and established scientists over the merits of the ideas. [See “FABBS Responds to NIH RFI on Proposed Simplified Review Framework”].
- Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) Program. Social and behavioral factors such as: economic stability, employment opportunities, healthy food, safe spaces, transportation and quality healthcare.
A few meeting highlights of particular interest to FABBS members:
- All of Us – This research program launched in 2012 to accelerate health research and medical breakthroughs by enabling individualized prevention, treatment, and care for all. The sample is diverse by race, education, rural, sexual orientation and disability. This past year they released two new surveys:
- Emotional Health History and Wellbeing asks about generalizable anxiety, Depression, Suicidal behavior, Trauma and General Wellbeing
- Behavioral Health and Personality gathers information on Adult ADHD, Bipolar disorder, Psychosis, Panic disorder and Obsessive, Compulsive Disorders
- UNITE – Dr. Marie Bernard, Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity, NIH and Alfred Johnson, Deputy Director for Management, NIH provided an update of the program, launched in February 2021, to promote equity, generate bold ideas, catalyze new actions and collectively identify and address racism within NIH and throughout the biomedical and behavioral workforce.
- Re-envisioning NIH-Supported Postdoctoral Training – Tara Schwetz, PhD, Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, outlined findings and recommendation from the ACD Working Group. Key areas of concern emerged including immigration issues, cost of living, work life balance, and transitioning to full time employment – both in academia and elsewhere industry and business. The committee considered how to mitigate financial strain, address power imbalances, and clarify their work positions. They recommend increasing compensation for post docs, recognizing that this could lead to a reduction in the number of post docs that NIH is able to support.
Other informative presentations and discussions covered maternal mortality crisis, the future of Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), novel alternatives to advance biomedical research, and Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx).
[See the Agenda] | Watch the [Day 1 webcast] and [Day 2 webcast]
The committee is scheduled to meet next on June 13-14, 2024.
