NIAAH Scholars

Ivan Martinez , West Virginia University In an amazing twist of fate, the aggressive cervical cancer tumor that killed Henrietta Lacks , a 31-year old African American mother, became an essential tool that helped the biomedical field flourish in the 20th century. As a cancer researcher who uses HeLa cells in my everyday work, even I sometimes find it hard to believe. Lacks’ cervical cancer cells, called “HeLa” after the first two letters of her first and last name, are immo

Lynn Gardner , Morehouse School of Medicine Few things are more challenging than trying to vaccinate a terrified and uncooperative child. I have seen children wedge themselves into a corner and refuse to budge. I have seen them thrash and yell. And I have seen them sit perfectly still, but cry the entire time. I’m an associate professor of pediatrics and have been a primary care pediatrician for more than 25 years. I’ve encountered these situations thousands of times in my c

Deborah Fuller , University of Washington The two most successful coronavirus vaccines developed in the U.S. – the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines – are both mRNA vaccines. The idea of using genetic material to produce an immune response has opened up a world of research and potential medical uses far out of reach of traditional vaccines. Deborah Fuller is a microbiologist at the University of Washington who has been studying genetic vaccines for more than 20 years. We spoke to

Kat Kennedy , University of Arizona and Sara Nowakowski , Baylor College of Medicine The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Menstruating women who sleep less than six hours a night tend to suffer heavier and irregular periods. That is the conclusion from our new study, which was recently published in the Journal of Sleep Research . We found that those who got less than six hours of sleep on average nightly were 44% more likely to ha