Online Exhibits

Howard Bartner & 40 Years of Medical Illustration
Howard Bartner, an NIH medical illustrator, devoted 40 years to portraying human anatomy in his drawings.

Roscoe Brady & Gaucher Disease
How medical researchers study diseases, by answering three basic questions. Focuses on Dr. Roscoe Brady's team at NINDS and their work with Gaucher disease.

Human Genetics and Medical Research
Cracking the genetic code allowed us to study diseases at the molecular level, which has increased our knowledge of potential preventions and treatments for diseases. The study of genetics has become central to the science of medicine. This exhibit asks many questions: How do genes cause disease? Can gene therapy work? How do we manipulate genes and should we?

Converging Pathways of Pain Research at NIDCR
The story of how pain research evolved at NIDCR.

Joseph Goldberger & the War on Pellagra
Public Health Service physician Dr. Joseph Goldberger's discovery of the cause of pellagra, a disease, resulting from a diet deficient in vitamin B, that killed many poor Southerners in the early part of the 20th century.

A History of the Pregnancy Test Kit
This looks at the history of the home pregnancy test and examines its place in our culture. Research that led to a sensitive, accurate pregnancy test was done by scientists in the Reproductive Research Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health.

Martin Rodbell: How Cells Respond to Signals
This exhibit explains the work of Martin Rodbell and his colleagues in discovering a mechanism that transformed our understanding of how cells respond to signals. In a series of pioneering experiments conducted at the NIH, Rodbell studied hormones--substances which have specific effects on cells' activity. He could not have predicted the broad impact his findings would have.

Synthetic Opiates and Opioids
The quest for new painkillers and a synthetic source for morphine and codeine.

The AMINCO-Bowman Spectrophotometer
In the 1950s the NIH's Dr. Robert Bowman developed a sensitive instrument-called the spectrophotofluorometer, or “SPF”-that allowed scientists to use fluorescence as a way to identify and measure tiny amounts of substances in the body. This exhibit explores the instrument and its use in scientific studies ranging from anti-depressant medication to AIDS research and the Human Genome Project.

Early Computing at the NIH
Here is a snapshot of some of the computing tools used in NIH labs, highlighting objects that are now in the NIH Stetten Museum collection.

Early Medical Instruments
A cross section of precision instruments from the in-house research program at NIH, used between 1945 and 1965.

Equal Arm Analytical Balances
Instruments, designed on a “seesaw” principle, to measure mass precisely by placing a sample in one pan and known weight in an opposing pan until an equilibrium was established.

The story of one of the first supercomputers from its conception in MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, through its use in biomedical research laboratories.

Medical Posters
A collection of 24 medical posters drawn by artists at the NIH, representing topics from arthritis to women's health..