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Dear Biological Sciences Community,
Welcome to the new BIO Directorate Newsletter!
As BIO, NSF, and the world change, we are changing how we communicate with the introduction of this new quarterly email newsletter. This new vehicle will allow you to have a window into BIO and allow us to be more transparent and provide timely, relevant updates (be sure to read the Announcements section below for one). We plan to use the newsletter to bring you updates on programmatic and funding priorities, major efforts and initiatives, changes within BIO and NSF, and to share the breakthrough science you – the community – are creating through the research you conduct. Each newsletter will contain new highlights from your work, so please make your program officers aware of discoveries, highlights, and publications.
This newsletter is not all that is new at NSF. As you likely know, in June, we welcomed a new Director, Dr. Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan (see the item below for more info on our new Director and his priorities). Dr. Panchanathan has already made clear the value he sees in biology and biological science to help us understand the world around us and address society’s issues – whether those be the call for more robust and resilient crops, the need to predict ecological events, or the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As NSF continues to support research across the sciences that helps to understand, detect, track, and mitigate the impact of COVID-19, we appreciate the impact the pandemic has had on you and your work and are here to support you. Biology is critical to the COVID-19 response — from understanding the virus and viral-host interactions to aiding in epidemiological modeling. That basic research informs the development of therapeutics, vaccines, and other mitigation strategies. We have highlighted some of the work in this area below. In turn, the biological sciences community is vital to advancing that science and providing the breakthroughs that will help combat this disease.
We hope you'll find this newsletter informative and engaging. Of course, if not, you can unsubscribe at any time. You can also provide feedback on what you'd like to see in upcoming newsletters.
Until our next issue, please stay safe and healthy.
Sincerely,
 Joanne Tornow
NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences
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