JWST an infrared telescope 100 times more powerful than the famed Hubble Space Telescope. Among its goals is to observe the very first stars and galaxies to form in the universe, to map stellar and galactic evolution over a period of 13 billion years, and to search for biosignatures or signs of life on planets beyond our solar system. Dr. John Mather is a senior astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, the senior project scientist for the JWST, and is the co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for measuring key properties of the Big Bang.

Despite being crucial to the survival of our species, fertility surprisingly eludes millions of couples worldwide. Lyuba Varticovski, a hematologist and oncologist, an important focus of her research has been detecting and quantifying endocrine disruptors such as contaminants in water that activate nuclear receptors affecting humans and other life in the broader ecosystem. Alan DeCherney, an obstetrician and gynecologist, studies the cellular and molecular elements of blastocyst development and implantation on the lining of the uterus and has made numerous important discoveries with implication for clinical fertility.

Dr. Walter Koroshetz, NINDS Director since 2015 and member of the National Academy of Medicine, has conducted research on excitotoxicity, a cause of neuronal cell death. Dr. Joshua Gordon, NIMH Director since 2016, employs a range of systems neuroscience techniques, including in vivo imaging, anesthetized and awake behavioral recordings, and optogenetics to study schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, and depression.

Sangeeta Bhatia, director of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine at the Koch Institute, studies how micro- and nanoscale systems can be deployed to understand, diagnose, and treat human disease. In the area of the liver, her lab is developing microtechnology tools to understand how ensembles of cells coordinate to produce tissues with emergent properties in the body. In the area of cancer, the lab is developing nanotechnology tools to meet the challenge of delivering cargo into the tumor microenvironment where transport is dominated by diffusion.

Neal Young, who leads the Cell Biology Section in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), has transformed the understanding and treatment of bone marrow failure. Peter Grayson, a tenure-track investigator who leads the Vasculitis Translational Research Program in the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Seeks to identify factors that cause vasculitis, which is characterized by an inflammation of blood vessels. Grayson hopes to find biomarkers that can predict clinical outcomes and guide patient-specific therapeutic decisions.

Nora Volkow is director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a principal investigator in the NIH Intramural Research Program. Her body of research has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a brain disorder. Brenda Curtis is a principal investigator in NIDA Translational Addiction Medicine Branch. Her research focus is translational, leveraging social media and big data methodology to form the development, evaluation, and implementation of technology-based tools that address substance use and related conditions such as HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Lippincott-Schwartz is a senior group leader at Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus and former chief of the NIH NICHD Section on Organelle Biology. Her research has revealed how the organelles of eukaryotic cells are dynamic, self-organized structures that constantly regenerate themselves through intracellular vesicle traffic, rather than static structures. Lippincott-Schwartz also is an innovator of live, subcellular microscopy. Her collaborative work at the NIH on photoactivatable GFP led to the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which was recognized in a 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to her colleague Eric Betzig.

Dan Kastner is an NIH Distinguished Investigator and chief of the Inflammatory Disease Section in the NHGRI Metabolic, Cardiovascular and Inflammatory Disease Genomics Branch. Kalpana Manthiram is a newly appointed Assistant Clinical Investigator in the NIAID Cell Signaling and Immunity Section, having completed a fellowship in Dr. Kastner's lab. Daniella Schwartz is an Assistant Clinical Investigator in the NIAID Laboratory of Allergic Diseases, where she sees patient volunteers, investigates relationships between allergic inflammation and autoimmune problems, and has worked with Drs. Kastner and Manthiram on the riddle of autoinflammatory disorders.

Richard Youle, a senior investigator in the NINDS Biochemistry Section, has elucidated how the body clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against numerous diseases, including Parkinson's. Derek Narendra is a Lasker Clinical Research Scholar in the NINDS Inherited Movement Disorders Unit. With a focus on Early Onset Parkinson's Disease, his lab has discovered that two genes, Parkin and PINK1, function in a novel mitochondrial quality control pathway in which impaired mitochondria are targeted for lysosomal degradation by mitophagy.

Dr. Lindsey Criswell, director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), has contributed to the identification of more than 30 genes linked to these disorders using genome-wide association and other genetic studies. Dr. Steven Holland, NIH Distinguished Investigator and director of the intramural program at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), employs an integrated bench-to-bedside model in laboratory work and in the clinical appreciation of disease, which together add new insights into mechanisms of action and avenues of therapy.

Michael Lenardo, co-director of the NIAID Clinical Genomics Program, has made great strides in using genomic approaches for treating autoimmune conditions such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes mellitus. Helen Su, chief of the Human Immunological Diseases Section in NIAID's Laboratory, patients with a spectrum of poorly characterized, inherited immunodeficiencies and autoimmune diseases who lack molecular diagnoses.

Luba Vikhanski, a science writer at the Weizmann Institute of Science, is the author of "Immunity: How Elie Metchnikoff Changed the Course of Modern Medicine." Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology, is recognized internationally for his co-discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS during his long tenure at the NIH.

Jeffrey Gordon, Program Director at Washington University, is known internationally for his lab's research on how gut microbial communities affect normal intestinal function. Tim Greten, senior investigator at the NIH, is an expert in gastrointestinal and tumor oncology whose lab hopes to better understand how liver tumors interact with the immune system.

Barry Marshal is a 2005 Nobel prize winner for his demonstration of H. pylori as an agent of gastritis and peptic ulcer disease, while Martin Blaser is the director of the CABM at Rutgers who uses H. pylori as a model system for human health.

Anthony Fauci, a stranger to no one at the NIH, has been a public face of the COVID pandemic response since January 2020, meanwhile, Roger Glass has helped to guide the U.S. international response to the COVID pandemic.