 The next thing I would like to bring to your attention is, um, you want to do the items of interest. Oh, Eric, do you want to do the... So we're at that time in the agenda where it's basically council-initiated discussion. So there's sort of two forms of this. One is there anything you want to talk about, having sort of been here for about eight plus hours, that hasn't come up or that you want to revisit? That's one. And then the second thing, and it can be interrelated, are there things that you'd like to hear about in sort of looking towards May council or even September council, the things that issues that came up and you say, wow, I'd really like to hear from such and such, and that has frequently been the case where you raise issues or raise people you'd like to hear from that we try to get invited to come present at council. So those are sort of two bins, but sometimes they interrelate. What's on your mind other than the finish line? Anybody you want to hear from, you won't be here. Go ahead. Okay. Put it on your mic. I won't be here, however. We haven't heard about the intramural program. Oh, you are brilliant. Since you actually, you, I think, gave us the last. No, no, we've had, we had Dan Kastner come and present, but we're actually overdue on that. And it's so, it's so freaky that you say this, because I actually emailed Rudy this weekend. I said, you know what? I'm thinking about May. We'll probably will, if he's available, we'll have Dan Kastner come and give an update because we try to get those updates in about every year and a half. It's probably been two years. But yes, we will have an update on the intramural program schedule permitting. We'll do that in May. You can watch it by videocast. Any other suggestions? We've talked about this before, but having the Smithsonian Institute secretary come. Can you invite him since you guys are buddies and he, that'd be great. I can do that. David Scorton. So that would be really, that would be quite interesting. Maybe Val, you could work with me. We could try to twist his arm to get him out here. That'd be great. Okay. For those who don't realize what we just talked about, the Smithsonian, the secretary, the Smithsonian is a physician. First time there's ever been a physician. And a former colleague of Val's when they were both at Iowa, when Scorton was at Iowa, before going to Cornell and then going to the Smithsonian. So we have a good connection that Val's helped me with before. So yeah, David Scorton. We've worked a lot with Smithsonian and we would love to broaden our involvement. And there are ongoing discussions about possibilities, but that would be another good thing to invite him to. He's exquisitely busy. The Smithsonian secretary does get pulled in a million different directions. Other suggestions? Now that the strategic planning has started, is there- Now we're five hours in. Can you feel the difference? Yeah, we're five hours in. So I was, since I wasn't on council or involved the last time you went through all of this. Things like now will be a portion of each open session or? I'm not- I would say not necessarily, but as needed. I would fully suspect that when appropriate we'll do stuff in open session, but certainly I could imagine that we'll- I am serious when I say I doubt we'll have any major event without making sure at least a council member or two get invited. And so we'll probably also want to have check-ins. Some of that could be in the open session, some of it could be in the closed session, but yeah, I think we'll be frequently checking in, but maybe there'll probably be some formal check-ins as well, but on an ongoing basis. And any sort of serious forming of the strategic plan we would certainly more formally present to council. I'm sorry, Carol. Yeah, Carol. So I know that for the data sustainability council or whatever that group is called now that that report is due in May sometime. Is that right? So let me clarify. The thing that's due in May and I could preface this by saying there's a good likelihood I will have against schedule permitting, it might be really good timing to have John Lorch come to the May council meeting. And I was already thinking about that to talk about a strategic plan that is due to Congress on data science. It's not about sustainability, sustainability is one part of it. Congress has requested a strategic plan from NIH and around data science broadly defined that is being generated by something called the Scientific Data Council that John Lorch and Steve Katz co-chair that I'm an active member of. And in fact, I can tell you that an early draft of that strategic plan has been presented at at least two council meetings, including NIGMS, John presented it to his own council I think like a week or two ago and my understanding that's on video cast available. So good. People may be interested in seeing that. And I also was heading toward going to be also be presented at the NIA MS council. And then it's going to get refined a little based on that feedback and then it's going to go out to for request, there's going to be requests for information about it. So there'll be a public comment period. And then it's supposed to be due in May, maybe about the time of our council. So it may be a really opportune time. I was already thinking to have John, it might be that he comes and presents it as opposed to presented and asked for feedback because they'll already be submitted, but it's still be good to get your feedback about it. There are many elements within it included in that is this effort to try to better define the sustainability options for data resources across the NIH. Something that we've talked about this council as it pertains to NHGRI resources that we support. So I think we should have a presentation. Right. I was already thinking it now this will solidify. Okay. Val. So we had someone come from the FDA once and they talk mostly about testing, I believe. Is there any chance we could? I think there's a new director. Oh, all the way to the top. So somebody lower down to talk about. So I don't know if anybody in the back wants to approach a microphone, but what I would say is we would love to have that. There's a lot of vacancies in the office, leadership vacancies in the offices that we were dealing with. So timing might, as far as I know, that's still vacant. Yeah. I mean, the main office that we were dealing with, I think two or three of the main people, two of the main people have departed. And I don't think those positions have been filled with, by Gottlieb, the new director. So maybe we should put it on the shelf for now. I mean, because we've sort of lost a lot of our regular interactions out of fair assessment. I mean, not, we still interact with the staff, but it's, I mean, people that I was interacting with have transitioned and the replacements have not been, not in place yet. So I think we want, I think the timing needs to be right. And I think it's probably a little premature until those positions get filled. Okay. You agree in the back? Well, I'm more interested in issues related to treatments. So genomic-based treatments and how they're looking at those. Do we have any familiarity or expertise in genomic-based treatments, which is probably a little bit out of our scope? I mean, getting a drug approved after it's been tested and a dozen patients? No. For example, if you have a vector for a treatment that's been approved and just switching it into a different gene, why is it cost so much to do this? I mean, these are big issues. Yeah. Yeah. Get real close to it. Okay. Better. So I think we have a couple issues there. Some more senior folks that we might want to talk to about the broader issues that you're talking about or maybe we can get a bigger picture idea. So we'll talk to our contacts and see what we can find out in terms of who might be able to come and actually be responsive to the kinds of questions that we have. And see whether or not we stick with the plan to wait or can we have somebody come sooner and expand the things that we've talked to them about because I do think that would be helpful and it might be a way to jumpstart some of the dialogue that we have. I hesitate to ask, but yeah, no, and if this is boneheaded, just say so. When the large sequencing projects came up the last time, there was a lot of angst around this table of sort of where they were going and is this really sort of an investment that NHGRI needs to make at this point. And I hesitate to ask because I don't want to put us in the position of asking for sort of mid-course reports from every single large project because that can come back and bite one. But that's such a large project as we go into a strategic planning effort. I'm sure there'll be a lot of thinking about this, but there was a lot of thought when those projects were funded that we were in a sort of different place and what would happen at the next cycle. And it would be interesting to hear where they are and what they've done. And they have 51,000 whole genomes and 23,000 exomes. And there was a really interesting data analysis workshop at our place 10 days ago. So lots of interesting things that are going on. I don't want to put them in a position of sort of defending themselves, but just a progress report. So let me, I think Adam's optimally situated to answer it. Let me just start by pointing out we recognize our genome sequencing program. It's a huge deal for us. I mean, they're huge, both intellectually, scientifically, programmatically, monetarily, all of it. And our strategic planning process is huge. And they share a lot of hugeness, right? Because a lot of it is vision and priorities and making, you know, what should we be doing? What's our identity and all that? So it has not escaped our attention that these two things are really, are not in isolation and we somehow need to synergize our vision and decisions about the sequencing program with our strategic plan. And we've got to make those things align better. So we are deep in thought about that, probably not quite ready to talk about it because we haven't made final decisions. But trust me, Dan, we are deeply thinking about the very issue you raise. And maybe Adam could put a little more texture on that. Yeah, well, I would say as we were already talking about giving an update. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you. We're already talking about giving an update for May Council. So May Council, that's another way of saying we were already deep in thinking about this. And probably by May Council we'll have more to sort of say how we're going to align all these, all these, the new strategic planning process with a clear assessment of the sequencing program and how those things might dovetail and so forth. Ben, I do remember your first slide at the retreat where we started talking about this, which was the flagship slot. Right, it's very important and there's a lot of moving parts here. So what Adam basically said is by May we're going to try to bring some ideas of where we're at and what our thinking is to May Council. So I would just like to call your attention to the fact that we have received updates from our liaisons from the professional societies. So we have an update from the American Society for Human Genetics and the National Society of Genetic Counselors. And we have an annual report from the International Society of Nurses and Genetics. Those are also in the ECB. So the next is the Conflict of Interest Statements, which tells you that we are nearing the end but not quite. That will be in your green folder. So I will just read to you what this is all about. The Conflict of Interest Statement refers to the applications that will be reviewed in the closed session of the Council meeting. You must leave the meeting room when applications submitted by your own organization are being individually discussed. In the case of state higher educations or other systems with multiple campuses geographically separated, own organization is intended to mean the entire system, except when a determination has been made that the components are separate organizations for the purpose of conflict of interest. You should avoid situations that could give rise to the charges of conflict of interest, whether real or apparent. For example, you should not participate in the deliberations and actions on any application from or involving your spouse or child, a recent student, recent teacher, a professional collaborated with whom you have worked closely, a close personal friend, or a scientist with whom you have had longstanding scientific or personal differences. The NHGRI staff will determine the appropriate action based on recency, frequency, and strength of such associations or interest, either positive or negative, and will instruct you accordingly. In council actions in which you vote on a block of applications without discussing each individual one, which we call the on block action, your vote will not apply to any application from any institution fulfilling the criteria noted above. So with this, I would like to ask you to sign that statement and just leave it in your folder, and we will collect it at the end of the meeting. Now, the last thing that we will do this afternoon is sort of not say farewell, but thank you to the council members who will be leaving. So we have two council members who are rotating off, Shanita Hughes and Eric Boerwinkel. So Rudy has been kind enough to prepare these statements that I will read. So Shanita, thank you for your sage advice on all things related to the ELSA research program and for your service on the genomics and society working group of the council. Your research efforts to increase access to genetic and genomic services to underserved populations has helped to prompt NHGRI to be much more inclusive in how we design our large population-based research projects. Your calm and polite demeanor make you a pleasure to work with, particularly when difficult decisions come before the council for consideration. You have consistently offered sound advice to NHGRI covering many areas of genomics beyond your own research interest, including training, how to implement genomic technologies into clinical care, and the ever-increasing challenges associated with data science. Your willingness to draw attention to problems that are looming on the horizon may not be much fun in the short term, but it's a great service to NHGRI and a major responsibility of the council. Thank you for your thoughtfulness and the energy you have brought to the council meetings these past four-plus years. Service on the council brings a measure of prestige to all of you, but it carries a great deal of responsibility as well, particularly in the current environment of budget uncertainty and ultra-competitive pursuit of grant support. We recognize that we ask a lot of you and we are grateful to all of you for your service. I echo Rudy's comments, and I would also like to say that I hope this is not a goodbye because most people who are associated with us do circle back in some capacity or another. And again, thank you so much for your service and input. That's it. And with that, that's the end of the open session. So I will gavel us to a close. Looking at the clock, we will take a 15-minute break because we got to clear some of this stuff and we will go into closed session briefly, starting at five o'clock. Thank you all for a wonderful day.