Dr. Skirboll is the Director, Office of Science Policy, National Institutes of Health (NIH). In this position, she advises the NIH Director and the NIH Institute and Center Directors and provides national leadership on science policy issues, including the ethical, legal, social, and economic implications of medical research.

Dr. Skirboll is responsible for the development of NIH's Guidelines for Research Using Human Pluripotent Stem Cells, NIH's oversight of gene therapy research, including the activities of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC), and for the activities of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing and the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Xenotransplantation. Her purview extends to the NIH Office of K-12 Science Education, NIH's implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act, and the NIH Office of Evaluation. The Office of Science Policy is also the focus for a variety of program activities, such as the NIH-wide initiative on the development of biomarkers in clinical trials as well as economic studies on the cost of illness and the annual Biomedical Research and Development Price Index. Dr. Skirboll chairs the trans-NIH Bioethics Committee and serves on the National Academy of Sciences Clinical Research Roundtable.

Dr. Skirboll is a neuroscientist and the author of more than 75 scientific publications. She received her Ph.D. degree in the Department of Pharmacology, Georgetown University Medical School, and conducted her postdoctoral training in the Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Skirboll served as a Fogarty Fellow at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and conducted research in the intramural research program of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Subsequently, she served as Associate Administrator for Science in the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA). In 1992, when ADAMHA was reorganized and its three research institutes returned to NIH, Dr. Skirboll was appointed Director of the Office of Science Policy at NIMH. In 1995 she joined the Office of the Director, NIH, in her present position.

Dr. Skirboll received two Secretarial Awards for Distinguished Service in 1997 and 2000 and a Presidential Meritorious Award in 1999.

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