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The NIH Catalyst from the Deputy Director for Intramural Research Fostering Communication and Collaboration The nihCatalyst A Publication for NIH Intramural Scientists National Institutes of Health Office of the Director Volume 4, Issue 4 July-August 1996 MCL, Moving Forward, Charge! Safety and Science Card Project Goes NIH-Wide Forward in Tandem by Celia Hooper and Rebecca Kolberg by Rebecca Kolberg slim piece of plastic and a little Immunological Genetics Section of NCH- shopping savvy is all it took to save GR’s Laboratory of Gene Transfer a quar- an NCHGR lab more than $250,000. ter-million dollars with her smart use of the mproving safety and improving ease A that a act to fol- I of scientific research are not neces- Although may be tough charge card. In the pre-card era, the lab of NIH’s charge-card sarily mutually exclusive. Proof of that low, the expansion bought the recombinant interleukin-2 will soon give hundreds more (IL-2) it cells has just arrived on the south edge of program that uses to culture T from scientists their the NIH campus in the form of a newly intramural Life Technologies Inc. in to save time renovated facility for research involving own chance Gaithersburg, Md., at a cost and, possibly, big bucks. of about $250,000 a year. pathogens that demand the highest lev- “I THINK THE REAL the basis of the els of containment. On Now, armed with an NIH results of a 30-card pilot pro- and a prescrip- Although the new Maximum Con- VALUE OF THE CARDS charge-card at and NCI, written an M.D., tainment Laboratory (MCL) is located in gram NCHGR tion by NIH is moving ahead and Pepper went to Giant Dis- the same space as NIH’s old Biosafety IS IN THE TIME offering all institutes, centers, Level-4 (BL-4) facility in Building 41 A, count Pharmacy and bought and divisions (ICDs) the year’s supply of IL-2 for the difference between the old and new SAVED—TIME SAVED a opportunity to allow their re- facilities extends far beyond a simple $2,490—saving a cool searchers to apply for their $247,510. name change. Gone is the old “glove- TO DO SCIENCE.” cards, box” approach, in which walls separat- own charge or pur- What accounts for the chase cards, as administra- mind-boggling price differ- ed researchers from pathogens, forcing —Amy Pepper, them to manipulate pathogen-exposed tors prefer to call them. If ence? Pepper says a Giant animals, samples, and equipment efforts to automate the rec- NCHGR pharmacist told her the through bulky gloves inserted in fixed onciliation and payment answer probably lies in the portholes. Inside process proceed as planned, packaging that typically MCL, researchers scientists who apply for the accounts for two-thirds to clad in plastic cards and undergo the required half-day three-quarters of a drug’s price. The IL-2 astronaut-like training session should have their cards in purchased from Giant came in bulk vials suits, with their hand by August, says Donald Kemp, an ana- of 22 million units at $415 each, while the own spiral breath- lyst in the Office of Procurement Manage- IL-2 from Life Technologies came in 5-mg ing tubes hooked ment (OPM) who is coordinating the charge- vials of 25,000 units at $49 each. But what up to an outside card program along with staff from the about quality? So far, Pepper says her lab air source, will Office of Financial Management (OFM), has seen no difference between the be able to move DCRT, and the Intramural Reinvention expensive and cut-rate IL-2 when it about in relative Working Group. comes to stimulating T-cell growth, freedom and con- “We’ve tried to limit the ‘thou shalt duct scientific and nots’,” says Kemp, noting that since the pilot continued on page 14. animal-care pro- began, restrictions have been removed on cedures more like using the cards to pay for NIH parking stick- they would in a ers and to rent meeting space. As of May 5, CONTENTS normal lab. the 15 cardholders at NCI had made 704 2 11-13 “We built MCL purchases totaling about $251,000 and the From the DDIR Recently Tenured with flexibility in 15 cardholders at NCHGR made 2,214 pur- chases totaling nearly $1.17 million. A com- mind—although it may seem like an 4 13 plete audit by of half of the card oxymoron to mention BL-4 contain- OPM Ethics Forum; What’s in Store for instiaites indicated that all ment in the same breath as flexibility,” records both Ryan Report At Research Festival says Deborah Wilson, chief of the purchases were justified. 5-6 15 Occupational Safety and Health Although some NCI scientists have Alternative Awards reported problems tracking their purchase- Branch in NIH’s Division of Safety. Medicine's card orders and reconciling them with When it is completed later this sum- Intramural Foray 15 mer, the $3.6 million MCL will be one monthly statements, NCHGR’s Amy Pepper Cartoons of only three “suit-system” BL-4 says she’s found the additional bookkeep- 7-10 ing duties to be well worth the effort. And Special Pullout: 16 continued on page 14. Pepper knows what she’s talking about: Interinstitute Interest Catalytic Reactions Group Directory the lab technician has already saved the The NIH Catalyst From the Deputy Director for Intramural Research Changing Demographics of NIH Scientists lie commitment of the NIH intramural program American). Lest we congratulate ourselves too hastily to excellence in science goes hand in hand for this progress, it should be noted that current Twith our commitment to a diverse, talented sci- trends are not in the right direction. Of the 33 latest entific staff. The reports of the External Advisory additions to the tenure track who were identified as a ( Marks-Cassell ) Committee (1994), the Committee on result of a search process carefully crafted to encom- the Status of Intramural Minority Scientists (see TJje pass both excellence and diversity, nine were women NIH Catalyst. July 1994), and the Task Force on the and six were Asian American, but, unfortunately, Status of NIH Intramural Women Scientists (see The there were no underrepresented minorities. I find this NIH Catalyst, June 1993) each pointed out deficien- statistic quite worrisome, and we are currently redou- cies in representation of women and minority scien- bling efforts to recruit underrepresented minorities tists at various levels of training and leadership at into our tenure-track program. NIH. In this column, I report on some progress and The Central Tenure Committee now has a two-year Michael Gottesman problems on our path toward a multi-talented, multi- track record in making recommendations for appoint- ethnic community of men and women scientists. ment to tenure. Forty-seven scientists have been consid- Although currently lacking a complete picture of ered by the committee, and 35 (74%) were approved at the intramural program, we have a few windows the time of first review. An additional six were through which we can gauge the changing demo- approved after further review, bringing to 87% the over- graphics of our staff. The impression of a diverse all approval rate of the committee. In the past two population of NIH postdoctoral fellows is supported years, only tlvee of the six women proposed for tenure by the most recent data, which show an almost equal received it. No underrepresented minorities were number of U.S. (IRTA) and foreign postdocs (visiting brought forward for tenure during this two-year period, fellows), a goal established a decade ago when the but both of the Asian Americans brought foiward were IRTA program was initiated but achieved for the first tenured. It is too soon to know the significance of these time only last month. Our visiting fel- numbers since they represent small lows come from more than 80 differ- cohorts of scientists whose careers were ent countries, providing NIH with a We are currently initiated almost 10 years ago at NIH, but rich tapestry of different scientific we are watching carefully to be sure training, points of view, and cultural REDOUBLING that there is no inherent bias against heritage. The vast majority of these either women or minorities achieving EFFORTS RECRUIT visiting fellows return home after their TO tenure at NIH. Of the eight Senior Bio- training through this scientific medical Research Service scientists UNDERREPRESENTED exchange. Our population of IRTA fel- recmited from the outside over the past lows has a gender distribution close to MINORITIES INTO two years, two were women and one that of recent graduates in biological was Hispanic. science, as evidenced by the self-iden- OUR TENURE-TRACK Parallel to these improvements, tified pool of applicants for the Fel- women at NIH have increasing repre- lows’ Awards for Research Excellence PROGRAM. sentation among our section chiefs (FARE). About 35% of the applicants (18% this year compared with 13% in in this recent competition among NIH 1992) and lab and branch chiefs (10% fellows for travel money were women, as were 32% this year compared with 4% in 1992). Compared with of the award winners. Unfortunately, we do not have 1992, when NIH had only one female scientific direc- any reliable current information about the distribution tor, two of our scientific directors are women today. of underrepresented minorities among our fellows. In addition, two acting scientific directors are women. It is good to see the increasing visibility of minority One major problem that has made it difficult to and women postdocs and other scientists through the evaluate the demographics, research interests, and efforts of the "Women Scientist Advisors, the Black Sci- productivity of NIH scientists is the lack of a uniform, entist Association, and the Asian/Pacific American Her- central database from which such demographic data itage Committee at NIH.
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