The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced a strategic vision of eight objectives that provide the framework for the institute’s research priorities for the coming decade.

Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., director of the NHLBI, will discuss that vision in the 24^th Leonard Leight Lecture at the University of Louisville on Friday, Nov. 4, at noon in the HSC Auditorium. In his talk, “Charting our future together:  Setting an agenda for the NHLBI,” Gibbons will outline the priorities set out in the vision, which support the NHLBI’s goals to understand and promote health, stimulate discoveries in the causes of disease, enable the translation of those discoveries into clinical practice and foster the next generation of scientists and physicians.

“The convergence of innovations in areas such as computational biology, data science, bioengineering and high-throughput ‘omics’ technologies is paving the way for a new appreciation of human health and disease,” Gibbons said as the institute published the NHLBI’s Strategic Vision in August. “We now have unprecedented opportunities to better understand the complex interplay of environmental, behavioral and molecular factors that promote health; a clearer picture of the earliest point of disease development; and the ability to repair damaged tissues with stem cell and tissue engineering techniques.”

The NHLBI provides global leadership for research, training and education programs to promote the prevention and treatment of heart, lung and blood diseases and enhance the health of all individuals so that they can live longer and more fulfilling lives.

The 24^th Leonard Leight Lecture is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 4, 2016, noon - 1 p.m. in the HSC Auditorium in Kornhauser Library on the UofL Health Sciences Center Campus.

The Leonard Leight Lecture is presented by the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the UofL School of Medicine. For 30 years until 1996, Leight was a practicing cardiologist in Louisville and played a major role in developing cardiology services and bringing innovative treatment modalities in heart disease to Louisville. The Leonard Leight Lecture series was established in 1994 and is made possible by gifts from Dr. and Mrs. Kurt Ackermann and Medical Center Cardiologists to the Jewish Hospital & St. Mary’s Foundation.

Gibbons is the second director of a National Institute to speak at UofL in three weeks. On Oct. 14, Linda S. Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, discussed environmental research and the role of the NIEHS in human health at UofL as the keynote speaker of Research!Louisville.