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Patrick Gallagher: Good morning and thank you.
It is a pleasure to be here and bask in the reflected glory here of John’s Stockholm
prize and to join this very important discussion on translation.
I’m going to actually just set the stage for our subsequent discussion by sharing with
you just a few thoughts.
I’m going to bring a different perspective to this discussion maybe than
you’ve heard so far.
Translational research is something NIST does all the time and it’s
something I never talk about.
It’s both the premise of our agency and what we do and it’s something
that we just don’t discuss at all.
I wanted to share with you why that’s happening.
NIST is the nation’s measurement laboratory.
That’s the good way to think about it.
In fact, many of you probably still remember it from its original name, which goes back
to 1901 as the National Bureau of Standards.
It’s one of the nation’s oldest science and technology agencies and its mission is
basically to define the system of measurement of the United States.
So, yes, we define a second and a meter and a kilogram and all the basic units.
What NIST mostly does is take those basic ideas of measurement
and turn them into practice.
Whether that’s weights and measure programs that are operated by the states so that when
you pump a gallon of gasoline, you know it’s a gallon of gasoline, or whether it’s working
with regulators so that if you go to get your vehicle checked for emissions, that we know
how to measure the greenhouse gasses or the acid rain gasses that are coming off your
vehicle, we can measure those accurately.
In fact, NIST has had a strong tie in the realm of forensics science, really almost going
all the way back to its beginning in 1901. That shouldn’t be a surprise.
We’re not a criminal science agency, but of course the practice of law enforcement is
deeply tied to the ability to measure.
This tie goes all the way back to our history.
In fact, the most famous case in this probably is actually NIST work or the National
Bureau of Standards work on the Charles Lindbergh baby kidnapping and ***, where an NBS
scientist by the name of Wilmer Souder was involved in the handwriting analysis and
subsequently of the wood analysis that identified and eventually led to
the arrest of Bruno Hauptmann.
In fact, Souder went on subsequently to help the FBI stand up their
crime laboratory in the 1930s.
More recently, NIST has been involved in a whole variety of areas from digital data,
digital forensics, nuclear forensics, DNA analysis, law enforcement technologies to
protect people, a whole host of areas.
It’s very natural for NIST to do this because it’s imbedded in our mission.
In the context of translation, the way I tend to think of this is the notion of
translation make sense if you’re looking at the world view from the
perspective of being a researcher.
You have these ideas and the focus is, “how do I translate this into practice?” I tend to
look at it differently.
The mission of my agency is putting these measurement technologies into practice, and the
programs have to be designed to do that.
Research is a fundamental enabler of that mission.
Our programs have to be designed to basically put these methods into practice, one of the
things we will need as we research.
We often view things as almost the opposite.
We’re getting a strong practitioner pull, rather than a science push.
A good example of that is our work in DNA.
John Butler is in the audience.
I don’t know where John is sitting.
You’ll see him.
He has “The Butler Did It” on his shirt.
One of the things that happened shortly after 9/11 of course with the attack on the World
Trade Center was the large volume of very degraded DNA material that was on the site.
This challenged the current technology in terms of being able to rapidly look and
characterize and generate profiles for small samples, very damaged DNA samples.
John and his team basically went back, developed and modified the underlying methodology
to develop these profiles and then didn’t just write a science paper.
What they did was they worked to disseminate that into the practice.
They worked with manufacturers to develop the technology for that new equipment.
They developed the testing infrastructure so that this equipment, when it’s deployed, can
be calibrated and checked and used reliably in the field.
The whole program was designed to drive this new understanding into practice, but the
research itself was a key underlying piece.
I’m looking forward to this discussion.
I think it’s going to be great.
Again, thanks for the opportunity.