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“Look at that! Life!” said Deidra Flowers-Williams , a sickle cell disease patient, as she held up a tube with stem cells donated by her sister, Tanisha Flowers. It was just minutes before doctors at the NIH Clinical Center would use the cells – extracted from her sister’s bone marrow – for a transplant they hoped would cure the devastating blood...

About 20 years ago, researchers excitedly announced the coming of so-called lab-on-chip devices that could revolutionize medicine. At the time, people marveled at the possibilities: The devices would take the capabilities of a large biochemistry lab and shrink them to a platform the size of a cell phone or smaller. With help from a portable scanner...

When COVID-19 restrictions closed research laboratories across the country, it meant Erik Kimble, M.D.’s hematology and oncology training came to a virtual crawl. Not surprisingly, Kimble, who completed medical school in Mexico at the height of the swine flu pandemic, was overwhelmed yet again with uncertainty. He spent months preparing for his...

Every day researchers across NIH use an array of imaging technologies and equipment to help them make new scientific discoveries. However, over the last 10-15 years, a massive explosion in the use of Cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) – a technique that allows the direct imaging of proteins within cells – has revolutionized the way scientists do...

For nearly 15 years, the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSN) has played a key role in designing and conducting collaborative clinical trials aimed at improving surgical treatments for cardiovascular disease, the nation’s leading cause of death. CTSN’s efforts to learn more about these treatments – valve replacements, bypass procedures...

At St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri, a 12-year-old boy waiting in an exam room held a tablet as he scrolled through a trivia game about sickle cell disease (SCD) – an inherited blood disorder that had brought him to the hospital for a regular visit. As he played the game, he won a badge each time he answered a question right. But happily...

Lymphedema is a potentially debilitating condition affecting more than 1 million people in the U.S. each year. Its main symptom is swelling of the arms or legs, but if left untreated, lymphedema can lead to severe discomfort and life-threatening infections. The swelling associated with the disease is caused by a failure of the lymphatic system, a...

It’s been called the most common disease nobody’s heard of – and also one of the big mysteries in medicine. It’s restless legs syndrome (RLS) , a neurological and sleep disorder that causes discomfort and sometimes pain in the legs, particularly at night. It triggers a constant urge to move the legs that makes falling asleep and staying asleep...

When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, ravaging communities of color harder than any other, researchers knew they needed to find effective treatments and vaccines – and find them fast. Just as urgently, they needed to include people of color in the clinical trials that were testing those vaccines. These, after all, were the people being...

Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. And according to the American Red Cross, a single donation can save up to three lives. On June 14, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) joins the World Health Organization (WHO) in observing World Blood Donor Day. Simone Glynn, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the Blood Epidemiology and...