November 19, 2003
Ambassador Meets NIH Officials and Researchers

 

Ambassador Simonyi visited the National Institutes of Health today, together with Andras Siegler, Deputy State Secretary for Research and Development of the Hungarian Ministry of Education, as well as officials of the Hungarian Government, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Embassy.

Ambassador Simonyi discussed the possible fields of cooperation with Michael Gottesman, MD, Deputy Director of NIH for Intramural Research.

The Hungarian Ambassador Symposium took place in the Cloister (Building 60) on the NIH campus. Following presentations by Ambassador Simonyi and Dr. Siegler on bilateral relations and the science policy of the Hungarian Government, a Q&A session and a small reception gave the participants opportunity to discuss the institutional changes in the Hungarian S&T system and the importance of the cooperation with NIH.

In addition to the young Hungarian and American biomedical scientists, many distinguished representatives of DHHS and NIH attended the Symposium, including Howard J. Zucker, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health, Henning Birkedal-Hansen, Scientific Director, National Dental Research Institute, Robert Wenthold, National Institute for Deafness and Communicative Disorders, Mary DeLong, Director, NIH Graduate Program, and Philip Chen, Senior Adviser to the Deputy Director of NIH for Intramural Research. George Kunos, Scientific Director of NIAAA was most helpful in organizing the event.