🚨Join us TOMORROW at 1:30pm ET for the next Scientific Freedom Lecture series talk, titled “Science is Under Attack: How Can We Save it?” Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a noted epidemiologist, author, and senior @HHSGov official will explore scientists’ role toward shaping the public’s trust in health science research.

Glad to see someone is on board with making replication a top priority! Although the notion that NIH is “scaling down” our work on replication is complete fiction. We are deeply committed to making replication a core part of the biomedical research enterprise. Work is moving forward on many fronts: 🔎 Investing $174M in efforts to test interventions that incentivize replication, support research with built-in replication, and more. 🔎 Created the Linked Discoveries tool in PubMed Central, which connects researchers with related evidence and replication studies. 🔎 Issued highlighted topic encouraging research on rigor, transparency and replicability. 🔎 Creating a new S-index to measure (and incentivize) data sharing among researchers, with other new metrics to come. 🔎 [Coming soon]: a new journal focused on replication work. No amount of money will fix the issues the scientific enterprise faces on this topic. It requires a major cultural change affecting how we conduct, evaluate and reward scientific work. The culture of biomedical science must reward replicable, reproducible research — or else we won’t make much progress improving human health.

Women make up half our population, yet too many questions about their health remain unanswered. President Trump’s Executive Order marks an exciting opportunity to strengthen NIH’s investment in women’s health research and advance the Administration’s commitment to improving women’s health throughout the lifespan. Under the order, we look forward to establishing a new Women’s Health Division. Working closely with NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health, the division will strengthen the Federal Government’s ability to: • coordinate research on women’s health conditions, including replication studies; • address gaps in scientific understanding; and • accelerate the translation of discoveries into better health outcomes.

Last year, as part of a comprehensive review of NIH’s intramural policies, I announced that NIH was adopting an updated agency-wide framework to embed principles of academic freedom within our Intramural Research Program. This framework recognizes that intramural researchers must be free to share their scientific viewpoints and to communicate their scientific findings through manuscripts, presentations, media interviews, and so on. This includes hosting outside lecturers for events focused on their scientific work. Today, NIH reaffirms this commitment to academic freedom as members of the intramural research community host Kristian G. Andersen, MPhil, PhD, as a guest lecturer. Dr. Andersen is a co-author of a March 2020 paper published in Nature Medicine titled “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2.” The paper’s authors assert: “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.” They further write that “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.” The paper was cited extensively by members of the media, social media companies, and government officials to refute or suppress lab-origin hypotheses and to discredit anyone who publicly dissented from the dominant natural-origins narrative. As then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins wrote, “this study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID-19.” Yet before and after the paper’s publication, Dr. Andersen himself expressed substantially more uncertainty. In January, he wrote in an email that some features of the virus “(potentially) look engineered.” One month after the paper’s publication, he wrote privately that he was not fully convinced that every lab-based scenario could be ruled out. In January 2025, the Central Intelligence Agency released the results of an assessment conducted during the Biden administration that found a “research-related origin” of SARS-CoV-2 was “more likely than a natural origin,” while assessing both theories as plausible. Given the evidence I’ve seen, I think the preponderance of evidence supports the theory that the virus leaked from a lab. I am keenly aware that no hypothesis about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 has been conclusively proven. When it comes to open scientific questions like this, our ability to pursue truth depends on our freedom to explore various hypotheses, weigh all available evidence, and deliberate openly. This freedom was denied to many scientists during the pandemic. 𝗜 𝗮𝗺 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗡𝗜𝗛 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗴𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀—𝗻𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗦-𝗖𝗼𝗩-𝟮—𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 𝗶𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝘄.

We are entering a new era in which genomic discoveries can increasingly be translated into meaningful advances in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. Dr. Cho brings the scientific vision, collaborative leadership, and translational expertise needed to help realize that promise and advance the NHGRI's mission.

NIH’s Unified Funding Strategy will allow us to take a more comprehensive approach to our funding decisions. While peer review remains essential, we’ll no longer rely on a single score. Our new model using multiple inputs will help us make more informed decisions on the research we fund and be better stewards of scientific opportunity. Learn more:

You may have heard a common misconception at the recent Research Security hearing that NIH has slowed its pace and only spent 15% of our budget. This is false, as the latest data show NIH remains on track to make awards at a pace similar to previous years. Learn more:

Finding cancer earlier can make all the difference. NIH-supported researchers are developing a fast, AI-assisted imaging approach that could one day help detect endometrial cancer earlier—without a traditional biopsy.

. @DrJBhattacharya, Director of the National Institutes of Health and Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, joins this NEW episode of Real Talk to discuss how the COVID-19 response became politicized, why public trust in science and public health institutions declined, and his efforts to remove DEI initiatives and other political priorities from the @NIH. | @NIHDirector_Jay

A new is coming soon. 🔗 Later this month, NIH will begin rolling out a reimagined web experience designed to make it easier to find scientific research, navigate NIH resources, and connect with funding opportunities, programs, and more across NIH. Stay tuned.

📣NIH wants to hear from you! A big part of advancing scientific discovery involves maximizing opportunities for all scientists—regardless of lab, study discipline, or affiliation—to share their ideas. With that in mind, NIH is seeking public input on a proposed policy that would cap the number of Research Project Grants an individual can lead at once as Principal Investigator or Multi-Principal Investigator. While we believe this is one possible approach to advance stewardship, workforce sustainability and the goals of the NIH Unified Funding Strategy, no final decisions will be made without careful consideration of feedback from the research community. Learn more and submit your comments by August 3 ➡️

NIH-funded researchers have developed a way to create specialized retinal blood vessel cells from human stem cells—opening new possibilities for studying and treating diseases like diabetic retinopathy. These cells helped repair damaged blood vessels in mice and enabled researchers to build realistic "mini retinas" in the lab, helping unlock new insights into retinal diseases. 🔗 Learn more:

Can virtual reality help measure eye health? NIH-funded researchers used VR and eye tracking to measure how well the eyes work together over time. Read more:

NIH is pleased to announce a new parent funding opportunity designed to help promising Ph.D. students take an important step toward research independence. 🥼🔬

NIH is modernizing how it makes funding decisions. The new Unified Funding Strategy keeps peer review foundational while allowing NIH to consider the full picture, including scientific merit, innovation, public health needs, and emerging research opportunities. Learn more:

We hate diarrhea as much as @HQNewsNow, but here is what they didn’t tell you: ▶️Cyclospora cases naturally rise every year between May and August. ▶️Cyclospora tracking never stopped. @CDCgov is actively working with 3,000 health departments to gather data. ▶️There are 843 confirmed cases with 1,500 additional cases under analysis. ▶️@US_FDA is doing its job: investigating the outbreak alongside CDC and state/local partners using established epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback tools.

Help us learn about malaria transmission. Join our study. Compensation is provided. Refer to study #001970# or call the NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment at 866-444-1134.

NIH has been working to advance biomedical research by incentivizing data sharing through the S-index challenge: a $1M prize competition to develop a metric that measures high-quality biomedical data sharing. Join us to hear the winners announced at the S-Index Innovation Event on 7/21. Join in person on the NIH campus or via videocast. For details:

Save the date: Get an inside look at how NIH makes funding decisions 📢 Join NIH leadership on August 14 to understand how NIH's Unified Funding Strategy supports informed, transparent, and flexible funding decisions while reinforcing the importance of peer review. Register for the webinar:

Inspiring future scientists starts early! The NIH Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program supports educational activities that introduce students from pre-kindergarten through high school to the exciting world of biomedical research. SEPA helps inspire future careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and builds future scientists. Join NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences for an informational webinar to learn about the program and ask questions. 📅 Save the Date: July 29, 2026, at 1:00 PM ET Participation is encouraged but not required to apply. 🔗 Learn more: