 Well, thank you, Laura, for introducing this session and providing important background information. Let me start by issuing a thank you and that thank you goes to the NHGRI staff to start with. We've had extensive internal discussion about how we are organized and how we might seek to reorganize and change is always difficult and challenging and I've been very appreciative of the constructive conversations we've had internal at the institute about this proposed reorganization and I think it's a real testimony to the spirit of the institute of looking forward and recognizing that to carry out our mission in the future we might need to modify some of the ways that we do business. I also want to thank the council for their willingness to take a time out of their busy meeting to have this serve as the second public meeting. Many of you have been important contributors to some of the ideas that are now going to be presented as part of this reorganization and your wise counsel along the way has been extremely helpful and I'm very appreciative that your willingness to listen to this plan in its final proposed form and have this be part of the council's proceedings today. And really what I aim to do today is simply to clarify what this proposal is detailed on our website and also to hear any remaining thoughts people in the public or members of our advisory group have about our plans and in doing so I'm really just going to cover three things here. I'm going to give a background on NHGRI especially people who may not be as familiar with our history and our current structure. I'm going to discuss our proposed reorganization and then I'm going to just in the very end just sort of review the process for implementation. So let me start with the background on the institute which some of you are very familiar with and perhaps some people watching this for the first time are less familiar with and I do think historic context is very important. Just as a reminder we originally started as an organization as an office for human genome research prior to the launch of the human genome project in fact we were established for planning the NIH's contribution to the human genome project. By the time the project began in 1990 we had already been promoted if you will to a status of a center, the National Center for Human Genome Research and then sure enough in 1997 we made the progression from being a center at NIH to being a full-fledged institute and so we now have roughly 15 years of experience being an NIH institute. On the surface we actually have a relatively simple organization and in fact an organization that has not changed essentially since the beginning of our center status or certainly over the last 15 years is institute status. We have the office of the director which is where I work and my immediate staff work and then we have two major divisions. We have division of extramural research which this council is of course very familiar with which is the side of the institute responsible for giving out grants and contracts to our extramural world. Then of course we have the on campus quote unquote division of intramural research that oversees our intramural research program. Also relevant to this reorganization are some of the sub-components of the office of the director of which there are three that are relevant the office of administrative management which is responsible for all the administrative management aspects of the institute. You just heard from Laura Rodriguez who heads up our office of policy communications and education the name of which is obvious what its mission is. And then also within the office of director is the office of population genomics something that Terry Minolia founded a number of years ago and has certainly grown in complexity and scope and mission over the years and we'll come back to the fate of that office as part of this reorganization. In terms of the broad division of resources across these different areas it's worth also noting that the bulk of the people reside on the intramural research program not surprisingly because it's an on campus research program but the dollars flow exactly the opposite with 75% of the institute dollars going out in grants and contracts through our extramural research division and about 20% of our dollars being associated with the intramural research program and remaining 5% of the office of the director. Now there are a couple of additional background features I think that would be important to recognize and appreciate with respect to when we're focusing on changes that we are contemplating for the institute. First thing I can tell you is that the organizational structure of the extramural research program has essentially been unchanged since the Human Genome Project 1990. It's largely a flat non-hierctical structure we have a single director and basically everything pretty much descends from the director with very little substructure at least no you know carefully crafted named substructure. Second thing to recognize is that the office of the director which I showed you earlier slide had three major components really has grown in mission complexity and scale in recent years not surprising it's commensurate with the institute's expanding research portfolio especially on the extramural side but actually even on the intramural side and so that's important to recognize that by and large especially in the extramural side things have not changed in a very long time and yet in so many ways the world has changed so much since the beginning of the Human Genome Project and certainly the field of genomics has changed and I think as a result our institute has changed let me just remind you if you think about take a walk down memory lane with me about the different eras of the institute especially for those who have been involved in the field for a long time the genome project was sort of our origins in many ways it was guided by three strategic plans that were critical to a very focused accomplished a very focused set of goals as part of the Human Genome Project. The genome project ended of course we put out a new strategic vision which has guided us well from 2003 to 2010 and it had an expanding scope of complexity associated especially with our extramural research program but I would contend that the planning process that we just wrapped up a year ago and resulted in this publication in nature really set out a course for an even more substantial diversification and increase in complexity associated with our extramural research program and in fact just about a year ago was when this paper came out that our council here is certainly very familiar with and formally endorsed this strategic plan and was heavily involved in creating it and for anybody viewing this this talk if you want to get to this strategic plan you of course download it very conveniently from our website at this this particular URL and of course this new vision which gets talked about constantly at the institute and at various gatherings certainly at gatherings like this is all about charting a course from going from our origins of the Human Genome Project to more clinical applications and eventually the realization of genomic medicine and the way we iconically articulated in this new strategic plan is this five domain progression starting at very basic exploration of genomes and eventually through a series of research domains hopefully leading to a research agenda that will demonstrate how you can improve the effectiveness of health care through genomic advances and of course in the strategic plan itself we actually describe this in a figure that sort of shows through one of these density plots if you will the progression over historic intervals starting with the genome project in the last seven eight years and then in particular what I think a lot about and what I think in many ways is driving this proposal to reorganize the extramural program in particular in the institute more broadly is a view that the world will be changing over the next decade with respect to genomic opportunities and whereas maybe the last eight or nine years it was just the first couple of domains on the left far left were the most relevant ones we believe the continued progression right word with a particular emphasis on the second and third domain over the next decade and then the decade beyond even seeing major advances in accomplishments and opportunities in the more clinical domains the fourth and fifth ones towards the right so that's an important backdrop to think about how our mission has changed and how we believe it will continue to change that would one might believe there might be other ways of organizing the institute to accomplish those goals but before I introduce I want to just leave you with one more image because I also think it's consistent with what you're seeing here and it's very real when you think about programmatically what we are trying to accomplish if I simply say if you what does our extramural research program look like back then circa then well genome project back back in 1990 this is what we were this is all we were this was the extramural research program embedded within it was an LC research program and so forth and various other sub components but fundamentally there was one named major effort and it was a genome project how is how things changed since 1990 well circa now it's a very different world if you just look at the named major programs of our extramural research program there's something like 17 of them on those of the ones shown here and more coming in fact and it even gets more complicated than that for us as an extramural research organization because indeed we are overachievers from with respect to taking on responsibilities for the NIH Common Fund where we are more than any other Institute at NIH take on more responsibility for overseeing common fund project than any other Institute and if you name them as of today and it's even going to grow we even know that we are responsible for seven common fund initiatives so we're once upon a time we basically were responsible for one project we are now responsible for 24 name projects and lots of other research activities so what is now all about it's about a very different mission and programs it's a very it's a different director I've been here for two years and two months and I just think as a result when you put all that together we have different organizational needs so that is the reason why through a very deliberative process of internally planning and talking to lots of knowledgeable people including our advisors we have put together a plan for reorganizing the Institute the current organizational structure shown here which I showed you earlier the reorganization will essentially have major changes coming to the division of extramural research and some minor changes to the office of the director it will leave the division of intramural research unchanged we have no changes plan for that in fact that division which I spent eight years directing myself has a fairly substantial substructure associated with it which I think suits its needs extremely well and I part of this reorganization there's no plans to implement any changes there what is the proposal for reorganizing while the proposal is moving from two divisions to seven divisions and let me tell you what each of these divisions would be we would create a division of management and we would also create a division of policy communications and education really there's no creation going on here these are just basically being renamed from office status office administrative management office of policy communications education to division status basically these are the two major parts of the office the director in the future and they would just simply be named as divisions and on equal footing with all the other divisions there will continue to be the division of intramural research as there is now no change there and then there would be four new divisions created from what currently exists as a division of extramural research those four divisions would include the division of genome sciences which would be responsible for more basic genome science activities that have traditionally been sort of the core activities at the institute and have probably the deepest and richest history at the institute's extramural program there would be a new division of genomic medicine more clinically oriented genomic research that would be created there would be a division of genomics and society which would incorporate the ethical legal and social implications research program and of those of you who are watching any of our council proceedings learned about the ideas for some of this from Karen Rothenberg this morning but it would also include other components that we see as a growing opportunities and of research and other endeavors under the rubric of genomics and society and then there would be an operations division a division of extramural operations which would include review activities and grants management activities I would also point out that the office of population genomics which currently exists within the office of director would be almost completely absorbed within in fact would be completely absorbed within the division of genomic medicine so that office would go away would move out of the office of director and would rightfully sit within the extramural research program within the division of genomic medicine I would also point out to you that with time there will be seven division directors that will be responsible for these seven divisions and each of those individuals will directly report to me as the NHGRI director. Now thinking a little bit about how this sort of plays out when we know that the goal here is to support the maturation of the field through research activities in these five domains and first thing I will tell you is that we are not going to hardwire and compartmentalize things too much we imagine the best way these divisions should work especially the extramural programmatic divisions the three is to have them be quite porous as our entire extramural program is quite interactive and highly porous we want to maintain that but by and large if you go across sort of the far left two domains of activity would very much be the responsibility of the division of genome sciences with respect to intellectual leadership and the right two domains would certainly fall much more within division of genomic medicine and where they meet and share responsibility most likely would be in the in that middle domain understanding the biology of disease. In fact I would certainly argue that the biology disease activities of the next decade are going to be some of the most important and compelling opportunities for our institute in fact I think it's going to be all hands on deck if you will of having everybody involved in components of those endeavors. And of course one of the cross cutting elements we described in our strategic plan is genomics and society which you heard about earlier today and in fact that of course will be the responsibility of this new division of genomics and society. Well one thing we heard from in the first public meeting the webinar were some valid questions that we actually have talked about extensively internally but that I didn't articulate in much detail in the slides that I presented then and I just want to sort of address those questions now and giving a little bit more detail and those really relate to how are we going to superimpose the more specifically these research activities to these programmatic divisions of the extramural program and particularly when you start thinking about individual projects that are so important and so much sort of the known entities at NHGRI and number two how do you start assigning dollars and do you sort of assign dollars to divisions or how are we going to do this. And one thing I will tell you is what we are not aiming for is a perfect neat package where everything just sort of cleanly fits in. We're going to leave a lot of flexibility of what this is actually going to look like but we do have some very general ideas of how we want to execute this in a fashion that preserves a very cooperative, highly collegial environment the way our extramural staff interact and strategize and work through problems but at the same time give the kind of structure that I think is going to be necessary for this expanding research agenda. And so the way we are thinking about this to address some of the questions that came up in that first public meeting is that we envision these three programmatic divisions, I'm leaving out the operations division since they're not going to be responsible for program in genome sciences and genomic medicine and genomics in society. But then when it comes to actual scientific initiatives we envision and both and the dollars associated with them is not putting them in one of these and keeping them in one of these divisions but rather it's going to be its way it's always been. It's going to involve the cooperative and integrative work of people across all the parts of the extramural program. So for example, let's take our signature genome sequencing program. Well that's going to draw on expertise and involvement of people from every one of these divisions and without question, if you look at what we are doing it would require expertise in each of these three major areas. Similarly, computational biology and bioinformatics which we heard about on the first public meeting we believe this is going to be critically important. We describe it as one of our cross cutting elements in our strategic plan. It will draw on expertise actually in all these areas and are going to be important for all of these areas. Similarly, we know that biology of disease is a priority research area for us over the next decade and in fact will become increasingly important as we apply genomic sequencing technologies for being able to better understand the molecular basis disease. We don't envision this just sitting in one area we believe it's going to draw on expertise across all of these areas. And similarly, as we come up with current projects that we could name or certainly future programs and projects we are going to organize the execution of them by drawing on expertise from individuals in each of these divisions. I will also tell you that the way we envision this working from a budget point of view is that we will do it exactly the way we do now. We will assign budgetary amounts to the programs which is why I drew them in green as opposed to necessarily the divisions. So we will decide the priority areas and the priority programs and those will get budget associated with them and then they'll be executed by drawing on expertise from the individual divisions. With time I believe after we've implemented this I think two other things will happen. We will probably have more named programs like we have a named genome sequencing program. We will probably come up with more organized ways of doing computational biology or maybe specific programs around biology disease and other programs that we will name. And so this will get more structure with time. Similarly, I expect each of these divisions when they get division directors they will get more structure within it as those division directors figure out how to best organize their staff to appropriately make sure the work is done and a professional development occurs for the staff as well. So I believe with time we'll develop later substructure. But this is a great place we believe to start this reorganizational process and it's sort of the level of detail we think appropriate to be able to implement now. Within the institute, this is actually the way I'm looking at it. I have seven divisions that I think are gonna be highly cooperative almost in a circular way feeding into a central mission and feeding in interactions with me and my office. And I just think we wanna do everything we can to enhance these interactions. And so my view of this is not thinking as a seven different independent things but one big circle that together make up the whole. So that's the proposed reorganization. The process for implementation has been partially described by Laura. We are following the NIH reform after 2006 which calls for a very open process of deliberative input and careful thought before making any substantial organizational change. And so that has included a number of things including posting the information about this and these meetings and the federal register. That's all been done. And then of course having these public meetings. One of which already took place. The other of which is happening right now. After we complete this public meeting and take the input that we receive, we will, we have a package of material that we will submit that has to go through various levels of approval including to the Department of Health and Human Services. And if approved, we will then pursue the next steps of appointing division directors and implementing the new organizational structure as soon as that becomes feasible. Let me just close by just telling you what I think the anticipated benefits of reorganizing are. It's sort of what I hinted at earlier. I strongly believe that an organizational structure really needs to effectively align with our research portfolio. I think our structure needs to match our function. I think for a long time the structure was really appropriate. I think our function now is much more complicated and more nuanced and a different structure was the optimal way to be able to meet the challenges that we articulate in our strategic plan. I think the new divisions and I anticipate substructure within them will improve succession planning and senior leadership. I think we wanna have an institute that has a future of many, many decades of productive work and constantly taking on new challenges and constantly seeing new leadership coming up and being given opportunities to take on responsibilities and one way to achieve that I believe is the kind of structure that we put into place. And finally, I have to be honest with you and tell you that I think the structure that I'm laying out is commiserate with my vision for how to do organizational management at NHGRI in particular. I've been at this institute since 1994. I had opportunities to have major leadership positions on the intramural side of the institute as a branch chief for 13 years, as director of a sequencing center for 12 years, as the scientific director for eight years. And I've learned a lot about what works well at NIH, what works well within the culture of NHGRI and to be honest with you, what works well for me. And I would say the two years I've been the director, I've carefully looked at how we are organized and think about what I think we should look like over the next 10 years. And so I think I bring that experience and thinking about what's the optimal architecture for what NHGRI, how NHGRI is put together and thinking about how that's gonna match the strategic vision we have for our research future. So I will stop there and just leave this slide up to remind you that if you wanna read more about this, all this material is up on our reorg page and then there are these email accounts that you can mail comments. And I will stop there and turn this back over to Laura who's gonna moderate the question answer period.