NIH Family Members Giving Back: Rebecca Shlafer

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Rebecca Shlafer

Rebecca Shlafer/Credit: Brady Willette

When Rebecca Shlafer clicks on her office lights each morning at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, Minneapolis, she usually has a good idea of what to expect from the day ahead as lead of a nine-person research team that studies the effects of incarceration on children and families. It’s her volunteer work that can be unpredictable.

For the past eight years, this developmental child psychologist has donated her free time to serve as a guardian ad litem for abused or neglected children who’ve been removed from their homes and placed under protective supervision of Minnesota’s Fourth Judicial District. In that volunteer capacity, Shlafer advocates in court for the well-being of the child, but doesn’t foster the youngster or provide any day-to-day care.

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NIH Family Members Giving Back: Kafui Dzirasa

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Kafui Dzirasa at UMBC

Caption: Kafui Dzirasa (front center) with the current group of Meyerhoff Scholars at University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Credit: Olubukola Abiona

Kafui Dzirasa keeps an open-door policy in his busy NIH-supported lab at Duke University, Durham, NC. If his trainees have a quick question or just need to discuss an upcoming experiment, they’re always welcome to pull up a chair. The donuts are on him.

But when trainees pop by his office and see he’s out for the day, they have a good idea of what it means. Dzirasa has most likely traveled up to his native Maryland to volunteer as a mentor for students in a college program that will be forever near and dear to him. It’s the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Since its launch in 1988, this groundbreaking program has served as a needed pipeline to help increase diversity in the sciences—with more than 1,000 alumni, including Dzirasa, and 270 current students of all races.

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How Can You Take Part in Clinical Research? Looking Beyond “First in Human”

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For a remarkable journey through the front lines of clinical research, I’d like to invite you to join me in viewing First in Human, which premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel. This three-part docuseries, to be aired August 10, 17, and 24, provides an unprecedented look inside the NIH Clinical Center here in Bethesda, MD, following four of the many brave patients who’ve volunteered to take part in the clinical trials that are so essential to medical breakthroughs.

You’ll learn about what it’s like to take part in an experimental trial of a new treatment, when all standard options have failed. You’ll see that the NIH Clinical Center and its staff are simply amazing. But keep in mind that you don’t have to travel all the way to Bethesda to be part of outstanding, NIH-funded clinical research. In fact, we support clinical trials all across the country, and it’s often possible to find one at a medical institution near your home. To search for a clinical trial that might be right for you or a loved one with a serious medical problem, try going to ClinicalTrials.gov, a web site run by NIH.

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NIH Family Members Giving Back: Charlotte Phillips

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Charlote Phillips and members of a Mennonite community

Caption: Charlotte Phillips during a visit to a Missouri Mennonite community.
Credit: Richard Hillman

At 1 a.m., most people are fast asleep in their beds. But Charlotte Phillips sometimes finds herself up at that odd hour, waiting anxiously in a deserted Missouri parking lot far from her home. Phillips drives there to meet a contact for a very special delivery: a packet of cheek swabs and blood samples from a newborn Mennonite baby at risk of a life-threatening genetic condition called maple syrup urine disease (MSUD).

For more than two decades, Phillips, an NIH grantee at the University of Missouri, Columbia, has volunteered to ensure that the DNA in these swabs and samples is tested for MSUD within hours of a baby’s birth. If found to be positive for the condition, the baby can receive a needed special formula. Without it, the baby would suffer brain damage within days from its inability to break down amino acids in protein-rich foods, including breast milk and standard infant formula. Hurrying off at a moment’s notice isn’t always convenient, but Phillips, who is not Mennonite, feels a personal calling to do it. She wouldn’t want any babies to die.

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You’ll Want to See This! “First in Human” Debuts August 10

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For over 60 years, the NIH Clinical Center—the world’s largest hospital dedicated to clinical research—has been at the forefront of developing treatments for our most deadly and damaging diseases. It’s here at our “House of Hope” in Bethesda, MD, where, among many other medical firsts, chemotherapy was first used to treat cancerous tumors, gene therapy underwent its first human tests, surgeons first successfully replaced the heart’s mitral valve, and the first anti-viral drug for HIV/AIDS met with early success.

Now, in a Discovery Channel documentary called First in Human, millions of people all around the globe will get a chance to see the doctors, nurses, and other staff of NIH’s remarkable research hospital in action. Narrated by Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons, the three-part series debuts at 9 p.m.-11 p.m., ET, Thursday, August 10. The second and third segments will air at the same time on August 17 and 24. For a sneak peak, check out the video clip above!

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