University community invited to on-campus presentation by National Institutes of Health director

West Virginia University will host Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Institutes of Health, on Wednesday (March 27) on the Health Sciences Campus in Morgantown.

Dr. Bertagnolli will give a presentation sharing visions for enhancing the nation’s health from 3-4 p.m. in the Health Sciences Center Fukushima Auditorium (HSC-North 1901). Dr. Clay Marsh, chancellor and executive dean for WVU Health Sciences, will provide opening remarks. A Q&A session will follow Bertagnolli’s presentation.

The event is open to WVU students, faculty and staff. Attendees are asked to register in advance, bring their WVU ID and arrive early to help manage space needs.

Bertagnolli will be accompanied on the visit by Jon Lorsch, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and Kate Klimczak, NIH associate director for legislative policy and analysis. The visit will include discussions with WVU health sciences researchers, patient care providers, university leaders and state delegates and a tour of the WVU Cancer Institute’s LUCAS mobile screening unit.

The first surgeon and second woman to hold the position of NIH director, Bertagnolli oversees the work of the largest funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world. She previously served as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery in surgical oncology at Harvard Medical School, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment and Sarcoma Centers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.