Yesterday an MOU was signed to strengthen the collaboration between the Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health.
January 19, 2017
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Yesterday, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and I signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen collaborations and enhance the biomedical research and public health response capabilities of the United States.
Progress in the biomedical sciences and public health is essential for the security and competitiveness of the United States as a whole. Whether it’s tackling cancer, understanding the brain, or responding to public health emergencies like Ebola, Zika, pandemic influenza, or Hurricane Sandy, these challenges are not faced by one government department or agency alone but by all of us together. Advances in medicine and the ability to rapidly respond to public health emergencies increasingly depend on integrating multiple and diverse disciplines—including the physical and data sciences and engineering—understanding complex systems, and developing new tools and approaches. The DOE’s mission-driven research capabilities make it an especially important partner for increased collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services more broadly.
This MOU builds on the already longstanding history of strong collaboration between DOE and NIH, including the Human Genome Project, which resulted in revolutionary advances and had a transformative impact on medicine and multiple other disciplines. The Human Genome Project consisted of an initial investment of less than $4 billion and resulted in nearly $800 billion in economic activity and created more than 300,000 jobs. It also created a pathway for more rapid development of diagnostic tools for infectious disease like HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, and emerging pathogens like Ebola, SARS, and Zika viruses as well as significantly accelerated the pace of vaccine and drug development. It has transformed our understanding of diseases as diverse as dementia, mental illness, addiction, and diabetes and is fundamentally important to helping us untangle the roles of genetics, environment, zip codes, or behaviors in shaping the health and disease of individuals and communities.
The NIH conducts and funds research on a variety of topics including genetics, aging, chronic and infectious diseases, mental health, conducts clinical trials, and supports bench to bedside translational science. Many NIH activities including some of NIH’s major research thrusts align well with DOE’s capabilities, including the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Although most DOE missions are directed to goals outside these areas, many of the materials, tools, and methods that DOE employs have direct applicability to the biomedical sciences and public health. The DOE’s scientific and technological innovation mission in particular includes the development and deployment of technologies to support economic prosperity, including the application of technologies it develops in areas outside of the energy sphere, such as those benefiting public health and medicine.
Particular DOE capabilities of interest include instrumentation, nanotechnology and materials science, modeling and simulation, radiochemistry and radiobiology, imaging and sensor technologies, and applications of high-performance computing. DOE scientists have already contributed to the important development of MRI, CT, and PET imaging diagnostic tools, as well as new therapeutics for cancer. This past year, DOE’s Exascale Computing Initiative and the National Strategic Computing Initiative partnered with the National Cancer Institute to launch several pilot projects aimed at changing our fundamental understanding of cancer. With this MOU, the hope is that our two agencies will work together even more closely to find novel applications of DOE capabilities in many areas of biomedical and health research. Those include cancer, neuroscience, microbiology, the analysis of massive heterogeneous clinical and genetic data; radiology and radiobiology; biodefense, environmental health, and public health more broadly.
This MOU between DOE and the NIH is an opportunity to develop novel technologies, safer and more effective medicines, and greater insights in a diverse array of scientific fields, it will also prepare the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists to transcend the frontiers of science as we know it, and in the process, make our country and world healthier and more secure.
Franklin (Lynn) Orr
Dr. Franklin (Lynn) M. Orr served as the Under Secretary for Science and Energy from December 17, 2014 to January 20, 2017.
Dr. Franklin (Lynn) M. Orr served as the Under Secretary for Science and Energy from December 17, 2014 to January 20, 2017.
As the Under Secretary, Dr. Orr was the principal advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on clean energy technologies and science and energy research initiatives. Dr. Orr was the inaugural Under Secretary for the office, which was created by Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz to closely integrate DOE’s basic science, applied research, technology development, and deployment efforts. As Under Secretary, he oversaw DOE’s offices of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy, Indian Energy Policy and Programs, Nuclear Energy, and Science. In total, these programs steward the majority of DOE’s National Laboratories (13 of 17).
Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Dr. Orr was the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor Emeritus in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. He joined Stanford in 1985. He served as the founding director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University from 2009 to 2013. He was the founding director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008, and he served as Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford from 1994 to 2002. He was head of the miscible flooding section at the New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology from 1978 to 1985, a research engineer at the Shell Development Company Bellaire Research Center from 1976 to 1978, and assistant to the director, Office of Federal Activities, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1972. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Orr is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from 1987 to 2014, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 1999 to 2008, for which he has also chaired the Science Advisory Panel for the Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering from 1988 to 2014. He served as a member of the 2008/09 National Research Council Committee on America’s Energy Future.