 Well, let me start by giving my own welcome to all of you, thanks for coming, and I agree and want to echo what Howard just had to say that some of you we know traveled far to get here in some cases with many other demands on your time. So we appreciate you coming and spending two days with us in Bethesda. Let me also thank Howard McLeod specifically for his willingness to co-chair this meeting along with Terry Minolio. I thought I would just spend a few minutes setting the context for this meeting, which I think is important to appreciate. On the one hand, we ask you to come here and we're going to sort of take stock of the NHGRI Genomic Medicine portfolio. And in some ways you may just take that for granted, but I have to admit that when I opened up the book, when I got here this morning and actually saw it in print, the NHGRI's Genomic Medicine portfolio, I should just point out that it wasn't obvious that there was going to be a portfolio. That this wasn't something we've done from the beginning of the institute's existence some now, you know, 24, 25 years ago. And the fact of the matter is we are here to evaluate and to get input about our portfolio because of a substantial amount of effort to create such a suite of programs in a situation that allows us to now capitalize on these great opportunities in genomics. So, you know, I've been director now for a little over five and a half years, and certainly one of the goals I set forth when I applied to be the director was to try to infuse more clinical applications of genomics into our extramural research program, having seen early efforts of that bare fruit in the intramural research program, which I had been a part of for a number of years. And it wasn't that it was absent at the institute, it was there was a besides the intramural program. There were elements of it starting to gain some traction within the extramural program and other parts of the institute. But we really, I personally felt that it was a bit, it was the timing was right to have a more substantive effort in clinical applications of genomics. Shortly after I became the director, we finished and published a new strategic plan for the field of genomics, which now is four years old. It was published in 2011. The significant feature of that strategic plan, besides doing all the things our previous strategic plans had done in describing all these grand opportunities across a wide variety of areas of genomics, was to really signal a commitment to see genomic medicine become a reality. And in fact, the phrase genomic medicine was put into the title of that paper deliberately. Now, what's transpired since that strategic plan was published in 2011? Well, the history here was this idea to start now thinking about what are we going to do in this new area? That eventually, actually, I believe from input of then council member Jeff Ginsburg, was a suggestion to start having workshops to sort of look at what the opportunities are. And that resulted in Genomic Medicine 1, which took place in 2011. And in some ways, the rest is history. Now we're at GM 8. And what has happened, needless to say, is that we've actually put a portfolio together and our extramural research program around genomic medicine. And so where we are now is essentially in a position having now been a number of years into starting to get programs out of the gate. In some cases, they're starting to mature. But other ones are younger. And other ideas are still brewing. Is we want to assess and review where we are. That's the purpose of this meeting. And we have a portfolio. And I would also point out, I think it's particularly exciting to think about the fact that we actually are having a workshop to evaluate a new set of programs that actually be called a portfolio, having come out of what arguably has been the worst budgetary climate for the NIH. Certainly in the 20, nearly 22 years I've been at the NIH. But I believe it's probably the worst budgetary circumstance. If you add in the sequester and all the question marks we have faced, probably for 40 or 50 years. And yet, I think to the credit of our advisors, to the credit of our staff, to the credit of the community, we've been able to at least get some things out of the gates and to have some programs that we're going to talk about throughout this workshop. And that's great, the fact that we're able to do that. So in thinking about what we're asking you to do for the next couple of days and the input I certainly want, but I know the staff wants as well, there probably are other factors just to remind you of. Now, some of you know this really well, especially some of our council members who are here. But I do just want to remind you sort of the broader context that NHGRI is going to operate in relative to the NIH and a number of things. Number one, keep in mind, despite having, and I know the cameras are rolling, but I'm just going to say it anyway, we have a very large intellectual footprint. It's probably just a lot of pride I have for the field of genomics that many of you have helped contribute to. But despite having this immensely large, cutting-edge, exciting intellectual footprint responsibility around genomics, we are small. You know, we are only 1.7% of the NIH budget. We are not a big institute, so we can't do everything. So that's number one. Number two, at the same time, it's not that we want to stop doing many of the things that the institute has led in for a number of years. We need to be thinking about many aspects of technology development, of basic genomics, of mechanisms by which the genome operates. And so in understanding genomic variation, understanding the role variation plays in health and disease, we are now a full sort of spectrum institute, complete from the most basic questions to now the most important clinical applications, and yet, we remain small. So while we have this incredible spread across the landscape of biomedical research, we are doing so, you know, with a relatively modest budget, which means we have to be incredibly selective. We have to be strategic. We have to partner a lot. Meanwhile, what has, of course, happened, number three, meanwhile, is that almost all other institutes and centers at NIH are doing genomics, and we have many representatives from around this table already, and others are going to be joining us throughout these two days, and that's a great thing. And we welcome that, and we regard it as part of our success, that we are seeing genomics become infused across all of NIH. What that does, of course, is lead to the obvious questions. What should NHGRI do relative to other institutes? When do we do it together? When do we seed it to them? And, obviously, what gets very challenging in the genomic medicine space for us is deciding, especially when we're going to invest in programs or projects that are going to, by necessity, have to stick their toes into specific disease areas. Should that be what NHGRI is spending its dollars on, or should that be left to another institute who focuses exclusively on that disease area? But, of course, we want to sort of help push the cutting edge. Sometimes that means we have to put some of our skin in the game. So what we do a lot now, when we attempt to do even more in the future, is to partner with other institutes, and even if it means we're putting some money into a joint program that involves a specific disease area. So those are sort of all the cautions. We're small, we're broad, and what we're doing, and lots of other institutes are doing it, so why should we be doing it? There's all those dilemmas. So those are all the cautions. Now, meanwhile, though, I want to leave you with a couple optimistic ideas that I think will be important for what we'll be doing the next two days. First of all, and I don't know if this isn't real wood, but knock on wood, you know, it appears the budget might be improved. We might be entering a new era that where the budgetary circumstance might be very different than it was the last five years. Now, there's lots of question marks. You can't take anything to the bank, but the fact of the matter, all the signals are looking better than what it has been the last few years. And while that means we have lots of catching up to do, because lots of things are really hurting because of the bad budgetary circumstance, there might be a situation where we can start to do things we couldn't think of doing because of a lack of funds. So we want to be prepared in case all the good things happen that we hope will happen. And then the last thing to keep in mind also, which maybe is intermixed with this new era, but it is, I'm sure it will come up at some point, not that we have a lot of certainty of what this is going to look like, but the Precision Medicine Initiative has created a lot of attention to this general area, but it's obviously bigger than genomic medicine. There will hopefully be new money and a new initiative. And many of us in this room actually are involved in crafting, what will be involved in crafting this and executing it, assuming the money comes in next year. And so, but we will similarly have to think about, well, where is precision medicine and where does that relate to NHGRI and NHGRI's genomic medicine portfolio? And of course, I have no idea the answers to that because we still don't know exactly what the Precision Medicine Initiative's going to look like. So the bottom line is we need to be nimble, but we also need incredibly valuable input so that we can be nimble and be effective at the same time. So what we're asking this workshop to do, in my opinion, and Teri I think is about to frame the rest of the workshop, and I'm sure she'll have her own spin on this and her own way of looking at it as a person closer to having to execute this, is number one to help us prioritize, look at what we're doing and talk about additional opportunities, but importantly, help us prioritize since we know we can't do everything. Be very valuable to know what the levels of enthusiasm are for various things. And then the second thing to do, again, with the hope that we're entering a new era, is give us, I guess what I would call, sort of shovel ready ideas or at least a vision for new things we wanna do or ways to mold what we are currently doing and having them be in a situation that they're intellectually shovel ready so that if and when things present themselves with new budgetary circumstances, we don't wanna be on our heels, not that our institute ever is, but we really, in this case, we wanna be on our toes and the more developed the ideas are, even if it means we have to put them on hold until the right circumstance comes on, I'd rather have the great ideas on that list ready to surge ahead with. And I know I can speak for members of council, we just talked about this just a couple of weeks ago, that the idea of just being poised and just in a what if scenario, if things get better to just jump right in and have a project or project ideas ready to go would be extremely beneficial. So that's what I'm looking for, I think a lot of my staff's looking for, but you'll be hearing from others of the staff because they'll have their own unique ways of looking at this and what they're gonna need from this workshop as well. So that's what I wanted to say, Howard, and thank you very much, look forward to spending a couple of days with you. Thank you.