NIH boasts many accomplished inventors who have been given highly-coveted awards and memberships to impressive organizations. Below is a list of current NIH inventors who have achieved some of the highest honors an inventor can receive. 

Photo	Name	Memberships	ABOUT
	Subramaniam Ananthan, Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Subramaniam Ananthan, Ph.D. is the Branch Chief of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Chemistry Pharmacology Branch, Division of Neuroscience and Behavior. This branch researches all aspects of chemistry and pharmacology affected by addictive drugs. Dr. Ananthan has co-authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications and is a co-inventor on 21 U.S. patents. Dr. Ananthan was inducted as a Fellow of NAI in 2019.
	Peter Basser, Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Peter Basser, Ph.D. is a Senior Investigator in the Section on Quantitative Imaging and Tissue Sciences at the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Dr. Basser is widely known for the invention, development, and clinical implementation of MR diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), diffusion tensor "streamline tractography," and other quantitative MRI methods for performing in vivo MRI histology or "microstructure imaging". Dr. Basser’s work has transformed how neurological disorders and diseases are diagnosed and treated, and how brain architecture, organization, structure, and anatomical “connectivity” are studied and visualized. Dr. Basser was recently an NIH Distinguished Lecturer for the 15th Annual Philip S. Chen, Jr., Ph.D., Distinguished Lecture on Innovation and Technology Transfer hosted by the NIH. His talk was on using water migration to probe brain structure and architecture. If you are interested in working with Dr. Basser you can find the technologies he has available for licensing or collaboration on the NIH Technology Transfer website. Dr. Basser was inducted as a Fellow of NAI in 2024.
	Florence Haseltine, M.D., Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Florence Haseltine, M.D., Ph.D is an Director Emerita of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Center for Population Research. She is now the Medical Director of the North Texas Genome Center and Presidential Distinguished Professor of Nursing at UTA. Dr. Haseltine’s focus at NIH was on obstetrics and gynecology, women’s health, and genomics. Dr. Haseltine was inducted as a Fellow of NAI in 2015.
	George Koob, Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	George Koob, Ph.D. is the Director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). His area of focus is alcohol and stress and the neurobiology of alcohol and drug addiction. Dr. Koob has authored more than 650 peer-reviewed scientific papers and is a co-author of The Neurobiology of Addiction, a textbook reviewing the most critical neurobiology of addiction researched from the past 50 years. Dr. Koob was inducted as a Fellow of NAI in 2021.
	Warren Leonard, M.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Warren Leonard, M.D. leads the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology under the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute (NHLBI). This laboratory focuses on “the biology, signaling, and molecular regulation of a key family of these cytokines, the interleukins, with studies ranging from basic molecular mechanisms to human disease.” His lab cloned the IL-21 receptor and performed ground-breaking work on the IL-21 and the thymic stromal lymphopoietin cytokine systems. Dr. Leonard was an NAI Fellow in 2018.
	George Pavlakis, M.D., Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	George Pavlakis, M.D., Ph.D. is the head of the Human Retrovirus section of the Vaccine Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). His work focuses on developing and testing vaccines and immunotherapies for AIDS and cancer. The Human Retrovirus Section’s current initiatives center around DNA vaccine development. There are currently multiple technologies in this area available for licensing or collaboration that Dr. Pavlakis invented. Dr. Pavlakis was an NAI Fellow in 2016.
	Kenner Rice, Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Kenner Rice, Ph.D. is the Chief of the Drug Design and Synthesis Section within the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). His work focuses on “the elucidation of the structure and function of neurotransmitter systems in the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) in normal, drug-altered, and pathological states and the molecular mechanism of action of CNS active drugs.” as described by NIDA’s website. Dr. Rice was a NAI Fellow in 2017.
	John Schiller, Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	John Schiller, Ph.D. is the Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology and the head of the Neoplastic Disease Section within NCI. His current work focuses on the basic aspects of the papillomavirus life cycle, second-generation HPV vaccines, and HPV capsid-based vaccines against other infection agents and cancers. He has received many awards for his contributions in these areas. Dr. Schiller was a NAI fellow in 2016.
	Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Bruce Tromberg, Ph.D. is the Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). He specializes in the development of optics and photonics technologies for biomedical imaging and therapy. Dr. Tromberg has co-authored over 450 publications and holds 24 patents. Dr. Tromberg was inducted as a Fellow of NAI in 2021.
	Thomas Waldmann, M.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Thomas Waldmann, M.D. is Chief Emeritus of the Lymphoid Malignancies Branch and is head of the Cytokine Immunology and Immunotherapy Section within NCI. He co-discovered IL-15 and performed the first in-human clinical trial with this agent in patients with malignancy. He defined the IL-2 receptor alpha and beta subunits using the daclizumab antibody he discovered. He also defined molecular abnormalities of the common gamma cytokine, Jak/Stat signaling pathway in HTLV-1 associated adult T-cell lymphoma and translated the discovery with a trial of a Jak inhibitor in patients with this disorder. Dr. Waldmann was a NAI Fellow in 2017.
	Carlos Zarate, Jr., M.D.	National Academy of Inventors (NAI)	Carlos A. Zarate, Jr., MD. is Chief, Section on the Neurobiology and Treatment of Mood Disorders and Chief of Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch (ETPB) at the NIH National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The George Washington University. Dr. Zarate formed the Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch at the NIMH in 2009. Dr. Zarate has had a prolific career researching the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, most recently licensing an invention that led to the development of the first FDA-approved drug for treatment-resistant depression (Spravato®). Dr. Zarate’s Branch conducts proof-of-concept studies utilizing novel compounds and biomarkers (magnetoencephalography [MEG] and polysomnography [PSG], positron emission tomography [PET], functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI] and magnetic resonance spectroscopy [MRS]) to identify potentially relevant drug targets and biosignatures of treatment response. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and was the NIH Distinguished Lecturer for the 16th Annual Philip S. Chen, Jr., Ph.D. Distinguished Lecture on Innovation and Technology Transfer hosted by the NIH. His talk was on developing novel medications for treatment resistant depression and bipolar disorder. If you are interested in working with Dr. Zarate, you can find the technologies he has available for licensing or collaboration on the NIH Technology Transfer website.