Orloff Science Awards

“[At the NHLBI,] we’re encouraged to take on risky projects. Doing research for years, we finally get a breakthrough. It’s just like standing on top of a tall mountain. There’s nothing like that.” - Hong Xu, Ph.D., Orloff Award Winner, 2015

The NHLBI Orloff Science Awards are named in honor of Dr. Jack Orloff, a longtime member of the NHLBI intramural family and scientific director from 1974 to 1988. The awards were initiated in 2011 to recognize achievements in science or scientific groundwork where clear results were seen during the previous calendar year.

The award emphasizes the teamwork within the Division of Intramural Research. This Division’s research is broad and includes investigations into the basic principles of molecular, cellular, and organ-level biology and their relationship to diseases. The Orloff winners are scientists, clinicians, and other individuals who contributed substantively to work in their respective fields, helping to make advances toward healing various diseases. The winners are selected by the NHLBI director and scientific director.

Jack Orloff

Jack Orloff

NHLBI Scientific Director

1974-1988

Arrived at NHLBI in 1950
Described the mechanism of ADH modulation of iron transport via cAMP 1960
LKEM Lab Chief from 1962-1974

2021
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Award Winners

2020
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Award Winners

2019
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Award Winners

2018
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Award Winners

Jaffar M. Khan, BM BCh, staff clinician in the Cardiovascular Intervention Program at the NHLBI, discusses the development of LAMPOON and BASILICA procedures from bench to bedside.

2017
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Awards Winners

Sonia Nielles-Vallespin, Ph.D. and Team: For work on myocardial microstructural dynamics by in-vivo diffusion tensor cardiac magnetic resonance: preclinical validation and clinical translation in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and dilated cardiomyopathy.

Core Innovation Winners

Light Micrscopy Core: For establishing a world class and renowned Super-Resolution and In Vivo Microscopy Mecca

Proteomics Core: For developing work to allow measurement of the occupancy of S-nitrosylation

Transgenic Core: For developing the capability of using the CRISPR method to generate knockout/knockin mouse models

2016
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Award Winners

Orloff Innovation Winners

Toren Finkel, M.D., Ph.D. and Team: For measuring the turnover of intact mitochondria in vivo

Michael S. Hansen, Ph.D. and Team: For work on open source tools provide high performance image reconstruction in a clinical environment

Warren J. Leonard, M.D. and Team: For work demonstrating a critical role for STAT1 in IL-21 signaling

Warren J. Leonard, M.D. and Team: For work describing the first partial agonists for a cytokine and their therapeutic potential

Keji Zhao, Ph.D. and Team: For work on development of single-cell Dnase-sequencing (scDNase-seq)

2015
- Orloff Science Awards

Orloff Award Winners

Technical Award Winners

Bernard Brooks and Team: For further developing the CHARMMING Web Interface as a tool for computational biophysics education

Keir Neuman, Ph.D. and Team: For development of wide-field in vivo background free imaging via magnetic modulation of fluorescent nanodiamond emission

Adrian Ferré-D'Amaré, Ph.D. and Team: For structure determination of a fluorescent RNA mimic of GFP

Robert Fischer, Ph.D., Clare Waterman, Ph.D. and Teams: For deciphering the role of myosin II in endothelial cell angiogenic migration in 3D using novel computer vision analysis tools