The Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health, directed for the last 15 years by former neuroscientist Lana Skirboll, is sometimes jokingly referred to as the OKS - the Office of the Kitchen Sink: What comes over the transom is often half-baked, requiring some quick thinking and foundation-laying to shape useful policy.
Skirboll displayed her knack for quick thinking in early 2001, when incoming President George W. Bush announced plans to develop a federal policy for embryonic stem cell research. As head of the OSP, Skirboll's first job, says NIH's Acting Director at the time, Ruth Kirschstein, "was to get the science in perfect order and make it understood" by White House staffers, lawmakers and the public. In the next four months, Skirboll held countless educational focus groups and compiled an illustrated 222-page book on stem cell science. Then, Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health ...
