Barry London, MD, PhD, Division Director of Cardiovascular Medicine, has been invited to join the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Mentored Clinical and Basic Science Study Section (MCBS).
London’s role in the group will be at least a four-year commitment (2025–2029), a natural progression from his ad hoc position to standing member. He brings experience to the group, as he has been reviewing grants for nearly 30 years, and served as an ad hoc or standing member in several other NIH groups and study sections. In recent years, London has sat on more specialty study sections, including innovator and trainee awards groups, that make him the natural candidate for his new position.
As an official member of the MCBS, London will attend three meetings each year and be responsible for hours of careful reading and research of grant proposals in order to discuss them with the group and vote on their acceptance. This significant time commitment ensures he understands the weight of the responsibility—one he says he feels strongly about—to give opportunities to future physician-scientists.
“You’re looking to promote the next generation of talent, and minor problems with a scientific program are less important than somebody’s trajectory,” London commented. “We have a lot of really great scientists here in Iowa, and I know they want to give back in ways that help support the upcoming trainees. You can do that in many different ways, and this is just one of the ways I could do it.”
London’s contributions to MCBS’s mission will be multi-faceted, ensuring that future scientists or physician-scientists make ethical, novel, and meaningful contributions to health care; in fact, he received a mentored clinical scientist award himself. Having been both a mentor and a mentee, he will use his expertise to play a critical role in ensuring that the proposed designs adhere to high scientific standards, build cooperative relationships between trainees and their support network, and have the potential to be promising proposals for future funding.