Dr. Tony Beck. Credit: NIGMS.

We’re greatly saddened to share that L. Tony Beck, Ph.D., died of natural causes on April 7, 2025, while on the NIH campus. He was heading to the job that defined the later part of his career, which was serving as the program director for the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program. Tony also oversaw the STEM interactive digital media small business (SBIR/STTR) and IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) programs for NIGMS.

Path to a Scientific Career

Tony was born in Rancho Cucamonga, California. He earned a B.A. and an M.S. in biological sciences at the University of California, Riverside (UC Riverside), and a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of California, Irvine. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute for Cancer Research.

UPDATE: The video from this webinar is available.

NIGMS supports basic research that increases our understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. NIGMS also supports research in specific clinical areas that affect multiple organ systems: anesthesiology and peri-operative pain; clinical pharmacology common to multiple drugs and treatments; and injury, critical illness, sepsis, and wound healing. We have five scientific divisions that support research, research training, and capacity building in a range of scientific fields.

Since the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) began in 1975, it has supported more than 14,000 clinician-scientist trainees. The program provides predoctoral training grants (T32) to institutions to develop and implement effective, evidence-informed training for students pursuing both a clinical and a research doctorate degree (i.e., M.D.-Ph.D.).

Grants.gov is migrating to the cloud, resulting in a period of planned downtime for the website. Though necessary, the downtime will significantly impact preparing and submitting your grant applications to NIH. The Grants.gov system outage will begin on Friday, September 23, at 12:01 a.m. ET, and end on Thursday, September 29, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

In response to this system outage, application due dates falling between September 22 and September 30 will move to October 3. You can learn more about these deadlines in NOT-OD-22-190, as well as on the Grants.gov community blog and the NIH Office of Extramural Research website.

Dr. Brian Pike.

I’m greatly saddened to share the news that Brian Pike, a longtime colleague in our Scientific Review Branch (formerly the Office of Scientific Review), passed away on November 18, 2021. 

Brian first joined NIGMS as a scientific review officer in 2002, and he was also acting chief of our review office for much of 2016. He had previously held a faculty position at the University of Florida in the department of neuroscience, where he worked on traumatic brain injury. Before that, he performed postdoctoral research at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, studying calpains and caspases in neuronal cell death.

I’m pleased to share that Dorit Zuk has been selected as NIGMS’ new deputy director.

Dorit has been a vital member of the NIGMS leadership team for many years, including serving as acting deputy director for the past year, and as director of our Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology since January 2016. During her tenure at NIGMS, she’s made valuable contributions to our 2021-2025 strategic plan and reorganization of the Institute’s divisions in 2018, and has led efforts to build a stronger, more diverse, and collaborative workforce—both within NIGMS and beyond.

Please join me in congratulating Dorit on her selection for this position. We can all look forward to benefitting from her continued leadership.

UPDATE: The videocast of the ARPA-H session on August 4 is now available.

President Biden recently called for the establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to improve our capabilities to speed research that can improve the health of all Americans. The proposed mission of ARPA-H could include investments in breakthrough technologies and broadly applicable platforms, resources, and solutions that can’t be readily accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity. Such innovations could transform important areas of medicine and health for the benefit of all patients.

I’m pleased to announce the release of the NIGMS 2021-2025 Strategic Plan. Like its predecessor, this plan sets the direction and priorities that the Institute will pursue over the next 5 years. It enumerates a series of goals, objectives, and implementation strategies that build upon the successful outcomes of our prior plan, and it reflects key organizational values of the Institute. The plan also contains representative targets for each implementation strategy that promote both transparency and accountability to ensure that progress is tracked and periodically reported, and that any necessary course corrections can be implemented.

I’m pleased to announce that Richard Aragon is the new director of the Institute's Division of Data Integration, Modeling, and Analytics (DIMA). He has been acting director of DIMA since January 2020.

Richard has ably led NIGMS’ strategic planning and evaluation activities and has served as our Congressional liaison since joining us in 2014 as chief of what was then our Office of Program Planning, Analysis, and Evaluation. In this role, he has evolved and expanded our capabilities to include predictive analytics, budget and fiscal modeling, and the use of artificial intelligence to enhance business processes. As we prepare to the launch the NIGMS 2021-2025 Strategic Plan this spring, Richard’s extensive expertise in spearheading these activities makes him the ideal candidate to lead this critical component of the Institute.

I’m pleased to tell you that Dorit Zuk has agreed to serve as acting deputy director of NIGMS upon Judith Greenberg’s retirement at the end of the month.

Dorit has served in several leadership roles at both NIGMS and NIH. She’s been the director of our Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB) since early 2016. Before joining NIGMS, she was director of the former Office of Policy, Communications and Strategic Alliances at NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Prior to that, she was the science policy advisor to the NIH deputy director for extramural research.