Director's Note
In February, I had the honor of assisting NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins as he announced an unprecedented public health collaboration: the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® program. As you can read more about in this issue, NIH joined 10 pharmaceutical companies and nonprofit organizations to tackle several public health issues, including type 2 diabetes, in innovative ways.
To make this pilot project a success, we’ll be sharing our unique expertise and resources. NIH brings the power of our worldwide clinical consortiums and data. Industry brings an extensive knowledge of how to identify viable drug targets and bring them to market.
Working together, we hope to find targets likely to work in diabetes treatment and prevention. I’m confident you’ll hear much more about the fruits of this partnership in the years to come.
Though we work with others, we also take great pride in the contributions of our staff and grantees as individuals, including NIDDK intramural investigator Dr. Herbert Tabor, a prolific researcher and “scientific grandfather” many times over. In late 2013, Dr. Tabor celebrated 70 years of federal service—yes, you read that seven-zero right!
President Barack Obama said it best in a letter to Dr. Tabor thanking him for his service, saying: “Whether aboard a Coast Guard cutter or hard at work at the National Institutes of Health, he has furthered scientific knowledge and helped our Government fulfill its obligations to the American people.”
Serving the American people by improving health through biomedical research is our obligation, our goal and our passion. Through projects like the AMP® program and with the unwavering dedication of individuals like Herb Tabor, we move ever closer to preventing, treating and curing some of the world’s most devastating diseases.