‘Twas the night before Christmas, And nobody’s here.
All of us Feds are on break, But please don’t you fear…
The policy gurus, soon will return,
NIH’s midnight oil will not cease to burn.
The NExTRAC working groups are now on their way,
Emerging biotech we need to think on today.
And the Draft Data Policy is finally out,
Waiting for comments, the cheers and the shouts.
The BESH researchers are nestled, snug in their delay,
As we work with them on ensuring results see light of day.
Rumors are flying on the public access front,
We have no comment, if I may be so blunt.
The Common Rule at long last will go into effect,
Genomic Summary Results, you can now freely detect.
Return of results, we’re still thinking deep thoughts,
How to respect research participants, who we care about lots.
We’re thinking about ethics for humans, monkeys, and BRAIN,
That doesn’t mean new policy, is our constant refrain!
And I, in my role as NIH Chief of Staff,
“What work-life balance?”, I’ve been known to laugh.
On sexual harassment, let me be very clear,
Unacceptable, immoral, and not welcome here.
The culture that allows bad behavior to occur,
Is something everyone of us is responsible for.
Science needs to change, NIH needs to drive it,
We must unite with those who have somehow survived it.
“So, on civility, on respect, on diversity and inclusion!
On safe research spaces, down with biased exclusion!
On polices that promote only science that is best,
Rigorous and translatable, when put to the test!”
And when the NSABB convenes in the first quarter of ’20,
Biosecurity and transparency, we’ll talk about plenty!
The NIH Guidelines need a refresh,
And improving clinical trials goes well beyond BESH.
Heritable gene editing is still all the rage,
Will the world’s governance bodies get on the same page?
Policy opportunities abound in the coming New Year!
From all of our stakeholders, we’re dying to hear…
But for now let’s pause, as we rarely do,
To say from NIH OSP, happy holidays to you!
