Hello, my name is Dave Oja. Today I'm going to be talking about fractal, post-quantum recursive snarks. This is joint work with Alessandro Chiesa and Nick Spooner. So it's someone titled, I'm going to be talking about recursive snarks. I'm going to start off when he was familiar with what snarks are, but you may not be familiar with the recursively composing them. So recursion in this context means verifying a snark proof within a snark. And this comes up when you want to verify iterated function application that like, if you apply f, t times to x equals y. So here's a diagram of iterated function application. And strategy to prove this is going to be to prove iteration by iteration. First, I'm going to prove that f of z naught equals z one. And then to verify this, you just run the snark verifier on z one and pi one.  In the next iteration, we're going to prove that f of z one equals z two. And that the verifier accepts the proof for z one. So when you go to check the proof for z two, you're inductively convinced that z one is valid. And therefore z two equals f of f of z naught.  And the proof for z two is valid. And again, like inductively, you're convinced then that z three is correct. And this has a number of like very desirable properties. For example, the size of every statement you prove is independent of the number of times you apply the function. And similarly, the proof size is independent of the number of times you apply the function. And you can verify every intermediate proof. So if you have a confirmation that goes on forever, you can then verify the latest state. And also you can have different people that create proofs for different transitions in here. So some applications of recursive composition are succinct blockchains like Coda. There, what you do is you make f, your state machine transition function. And then you would, one way to do is to have your blocker poser provide a proof with every block they provide. Another application is continuous verifiable blade functions and snarks from app-reduced applications. So cryptographically, what we wanna build is two things. Incrementally verifiable computation, which is what I showed in the previous slide, and proof carrying data, which is a generalization to IVC. And proof carrying data, essentially you can recurse along any directed acyclic graph. So there's this theorem from a paper a couple of years ago that every adaptably secure succinct verifier snark can recurse. So this means is like you start the snark and you recurse to the natural sense and you'll get proof carrying data. And this compilation procedure preserves many properties of the underlying snark. We start with zero knowledge snark, you'll get zero knowledge PCD. It preserves a setup type. So if you have a trusted setup snark, you'll get trusted setup PCD and a transparent snark will yield a transparent PCD. But what about post-quantum? So PCCT13 says nothing about this. So we answer that, yes, if you have a post-quantum snark and you recurse it, you will get post-quantum PCD. This is not like a straightforward generalization of PCCT13. One of the problems is that quantum adversaries can generate their own randomness. So previously you would assume that like your adversaries deterministic because if you had a probabilistic one, you could just fix this randomness and get a deterministic adversary. Whereas here we have to fix that because in the quantum setting, that's not true. Adversaries can always generate their own randomness. So solution is to define a sufficient notion of post-quantum knowledge on this and then prove it secure for our construction in the quantum random model. So now when we want to recurse it in practice, that's we want to actually use these things. So here's a list of many snarks that we know. And here is a sync to barifar ones. So from PCCT13, we know all of these can asymptotically recurse. However, in practice, this is not what we see. Instead, it's just this much smaller set of graph 16, Planck, Sonic and Marlin that we've actually achieved practical PCCT for. And this is a very small set. So this is a question, what does that make snark suitable for recursion? All of these snarks are pairing-based, trusted setup snarks. Hopefully there's transparent PCD that we can get and post-quantum PCD that we can get. Now at this point, I do also want to note that with new techniques that came out very recently, Halo, you can recurse bulletproofs and get PCD, but this does not have a succinct verifier. I'm not going to spend any more time on that in this talk, but we do want to know what it is that made PCD practical for these succinct verifier snarks. And we identify what it is as pre-processing. So a pre-processing snark is one which your verifier is given a small digest of your circuit. And this implies efficient recursion. If you have a pre-processing snark, the cost of proving the recursive step is essentially the same as the cost of proving your original circuit. So we mean it's in a mathematical sense, like the recursive step has a sub-linear additive overhead over proving your original circuit. So if we compare this to the prior method of formalizing this recursion, you would start the snark for a machine relation. And then every time you wanted to go and prove it, you'd have to change, sorry, like do a recursive step, just to change the machine you're running. And then to get unbounded recursion, you would need to use a universal simulator. And this incurs a universal simulation overhead. So instead of it being one plus little one, it would be C times prove a time near original function. And the universal simulation overhead is a multi-factor greater than one. And practice is a very large multi-factor factor. So this is why like recursing these generic machines has not been achieved in practice. So it also tells us that if our goal is to create an efficient PCD scheme, we should focus on creating a pre-processing snark. So this is exactly what we do. We're going to create a post-quantum pre-processing snark for our ONCS. And moreover, it's going to be a transparent snark. So all prior constructions of pre-processing snarks were pre-quantum, no prior transfer setups. Here we're going to do it transparently and in the quantum random-mortical model. So our construction is called fractal. And it has the following asymptotics, like we have a quasi-linear prover, logarithmic verifier, and logarithmic proof size. And each of these matches the best known non-pre-processing post-quantum snark. Concretely, like these running times are, the prover times are in minutes, the verper times are in milliseconds, and that proof size is one 200 kilobytes. And we have an implementation of this. So we can actually see some concrete graphs of this. So to instantiate fractal, we have to fix a random-mortical. So here we're going to use Blake to be. And here I've plotted the verifier time of several snarks. So in black is fractal. Aurora is a state-of-the-art post-quantum snark for circuits that is a non-pre-processing. And then Marlin and Glossick's team are a state-of-the-art pairing-based trust setup snarks for circuits as well. So we see that for Aurora, it's non-pre-processing. It's a linear verifier time. Whereas amongst all of these pre-processing snarks, they're a constant logarithmic. And the actual constants running time are very similar, like around 10 milliseconds. And for proof size, we see that fractals, proof size is about twice as big as Aurora's. But in exchange, we've got this exponential verifier time improvement. So it's just quite nice. Here, I didn't plot the Marlin and Glossick's team proof sizes because they're extremely small, like one to two kilobytes. And then finally, the pooper times. So all of these grow in the same way as apothetically. It's n log n. And the difference between the slowest and fastest thing is like a factor of 10. But it's not like this can even be explained away with implementation differences, different finite field libraries, et cetera. There's not, I don't think there's too much interesting things going on there. It's, they're all remarkably similar. So now we have a fractal standalone stark. Let's look at how we get PCD. So we start with fractal in the quantum random oracle model. Then we apply the random oracle heuristic to get fractal in the uniform reference string. And the random oracle heuristic is instantiating the random oracle, the strong hash, and then assuming that security carries over. This is being used in increasingly many starks, like Sonic, Marlin, Planck, Bulletproofs, all of the post-quantum starks, et cetera. And then we apply theorem one. So then from fractal, from fractal we'll get PCD. So this is gonna be the first PCD construction with any of the following properties. Post-quantum security, a transparent setup, and support for arithmetic over any large smooth field, like binary fields and fields that don't support efficient optic curves, et cetera. So now we wanna go into real, actually using recursing fractal. So to recurse, you have to express the verifier in a language that the snark understands. And this will always lead to new efficiency considerations. For example, to recurse graph 16, you have to use pairing-friendly cycles of elliptic curves for efficiency.  And normally when you run it, these take about the same amount of time. But when you go to recurse, it actually looks like this. Hashes take over 99% of your constraint system size. So the choice of hash function and how you erythritize is extremely important. So if we use a standard hash like Blake or Shaw, they're optimized for computer hardware. So they take around 200 nanoseconds to actually run, which is incredibly fast. But in R1CS, they're pretty bad. They take around 20,000 constraints. So if you want to use this for fractal, and we'd have a constraint system size of over two to 28 gates. This is too expensive. Like we can't actually run snark's as big. So instead we have to look towards like algebraic hashes. It's a new line of work. This includes things like Poseidon, rescue, vision and mimsy. The time to execute these hashes on a hardware is much slower, like around 10 milliseconds. But in exchange, the constraints for every hash is much better, around like 300. So this means that the fractal constraint system size would be under two million constraints, which is something we can actually execute. So this is exciting. This means we can actually run the recurse fractal. And as a general rule, your biggest cost of doing recursion is going to be doing cryptography inside of your snark. So here what I've, I'm going to plot some, the cost of the fractal verifier using Poseidon as a random oracle. So in blue here, that's the number of constraints that we're proving. And in black, we have plotted the size of the verifier or in constraints. So it grows logarithically as expected because we have a logarithmic verifier time. So the crossover point at which the verifier constraint system size is less than the number of constraints like being proven is around one million constraints. So this blue shaded triangle is the practical region of recursing where like your verifier overhead is less than the original circuit you're proving. So taking a candidate point in here where your circuit size is six million, this blue thing. The size of your recursive step is going to be this blue value plus the black value, which is around eight million constraints. And since this black line is a verifier size is logarithmic, we can say that for regions that like we can, of circuits we can execute, the size of your recursive circuit is around your original circuit size plus two million constraints. I do want to note that like this recursive overhead represents an unoptimized proof of concept. And the prover is over 10 times slower than the standalone fractal because these algebraic hashes are much slower. But there's a lot of things you can do to improve both of these. So this is all I want to say about the theorems of our work. And now I want to go into a bit of how do you actually create a post quantum preprocessing snark? So all snarks have sort of looked like this. You start with information theoretic proof system and you have a cryptographic compiler. You combine these together and you'll get a snark. So because you want a post quantum snark, we're going to need a post quantum cryptographic compiler. And because you want to be preprocessing, we're going to need what's called a holographic proof system. Combining these, we'll get a post quantum preprocessing snark. So what is a holographic proof system? To explain this, I'm going to first fall back to explaining a PCP. So in a PCP, the prover wants to prove that it knows a witness such that the circuit is satisfied. So the prover gives you a very large proof string pi and the verifier uses the circuit and it will query the proof string pi at a couple of random locations. But the verifier has to know what is the circuit it is verifying. Therefore, the time from the verifier is at least linear in the circuit size. A holographic verifier is one in which the verifier has access to an error tolerant encoded version of the circuit. So in a holographic PCP, the verifier no longer has C as an input. It's just X the instance. And inside there's this third trust entity called the indexer who takes in the circuit and outputs an encoded version of it. And now to check a proof, the verifier is going to query both the proof string pi and the indexer's output of the circuit out of some random locations and be convinced if the prover does indeed know such a witness or not. So the time from the indexer is going to be at least linear in the circuit size. But now the verifier can run in time much smaller than the circuit size. So no longer has to have it as an input. And I mentioned the indexer is trusted. Well, we're going to make it into a preprocessing step. So how do we do this? First we start the holograph PCP and then we're going to get a holographic snark by applying the McCauley transformation. So what is this? You essentially take the proof string pi and the prover is going to miracleize it and send the miracle root to the verifier. And then the verifier is going to query the miracle root at a couple random locations, and sorry, the miracle tree and get values of the proof string pi and miracle truth authentication paths. But this new verifier v prime uses v as a black box. Like it's going to get the values of the proof string pi and then just run what it ran before. And so in particular, we didn't touch how it interacts with the indexer. So this is why it's a holographic snark. And then we're going to compile this into a preprocessing snark. What we do is we're going to use a miracle tree to compress the encoded circuit. And in the preprocessing phase, you're going to have this proof string or this like indexed out encoded circuit and miracleize it. And the verifier is just going to store the miracle root. And then the prover, whenever the verifier wants to query some coded circuit, the prover is going to supply an authentication path for the miracle root, the verifier is already preprocessed. And hence we get a preprocessing snark. And so this connection between holography and preprocessing is first noticed in Marlin. And in this work, we extend it to apply to a miracleizing your encoded circuit and therefore supporting the post quantum transparent use case. And we can replace Macaulay, Macaulay transformation from holograph PCP with any black box transformation. So what we're actually going to do is to use the BCS16 transformation, which is the analog for IOPs to get a preprocessing snark from a holographic IOP. So this just leaves us with, how do we get a holographic IOP? Or when do we get efficient holography? So holographic PCPs were first introduced in the 90s in the BFLS. And many protocols have like naturally holographic alternatives like GKR and Aurora. But the problem is this natural encoding is super late, which in GKR the encoded circuit would require a polynomial blowup. For Aurora, you deal with R1 CS matrices and these are like N by N matrices that typically only have a O of N non-zero entries. So the natural encoding of such a matrix is gonna be a bivariate polynomial of degree N by N such that like it encodes every position in the matrix. So this means that the encoding is gonna require writing down the entire matrix, which takes time at least N squared. We can't actually run that for sizable circuits. So it has way too high of a preprocessor time and a prouver time blowup. So instead we're going to need a linear sized encoding of these matrices because leverage is a fact of their sparse. So here's a candidate sparse matrix M. And essentially we're gonna write down three values for every non-zero entry. The value of entry, the row it's on and the column. So like to unpack this like we take a candidate location and you're like A, it appears in row three and column one. Hence this like slice of these vectors is a A three one. And each of these vectors has length linear in the number of non-zero entries. Since there's only three such vectors, we have a linear sized encoding. But now in order to actually use this in a snark, we're going to need an algebraic way of evaluating M at any of these points. So to do this or something choose the quality function where it returns one if it's two inputs are equal like quality I from I, right? And then otherwise return zero. So our authorization M is going to be as follows. We're going to iterate over every element and then the I coordinate is going to essentially correspond to the row we're looking at and the J value is going to correspond to the column we're looking at. Actually unpack this, it's evaluated at a point. So let's look at M of three one. So when K equals one, we're going to look at row of K or like row of one. And so that's this value right here three. So the quality of three and three is one. Similarly column of K, the column of one is one and this quality value is also one. So this term, the summation is going to be value of one or which is A but for every other term, it's going to be the case that either row of K is not three or column of K is not one. Hence one of these two quality polynomials is going to be zero. So every other term, the summation is zero. Therefore it equals A. And we can evaluate this expression using the univariate Sompchak protocol of Aurora. This is a quite technical slide. Now I'm going to take a second to zoom out and summarize what I've talked about. So we showed that post-quantum recursion yields post-quantum PCD. We also showed that pre-processing implies efficient recursion. And then we construct an efficient post-quantum pre-processing snark called fractal. And the way we construct fractal was by compiling a holographic IOP that uses sparse matrix encodings for holography. And now together, combining all of these, we get a construction of efficient post-quantum PCD. And as an implementation, we provide fractal as a pre-processing snark and fractal as a recursive snark that uses algebraic hashes. Thank you for your time. The paper and code are both online at these links.


Hello, and welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone on Think Tech Hawaii on OC16 Television. I'm RB Kelly, your host, and we've got a sweet guest today, but first, your Book of the Week. Now this is the like switch. This is actually one of my very favorite books, and one of my very first body language books. If there is someone in your life in business, in relationships, even someone you've just been dying to talk to but haven't been able to work up the courage yet, I would encourage you to check out the like switch by Jack Schaefer. He is an ex-FBI agent, and looking through this book, I actually used his friendship formula to attract my husband, which was an uphill battle, but with this book it worked out. So you can find this on Amazon, eBay, Google, wherever you look. Check out the like switch by Jack Schaefer. And for your body language tip of the week, this is something I've been doing to you consistently every time I get on camera, and it's something you do whenever you meet someone you know or hear something interesting. It's called an eyebrow flash. I just did it, eyebrow flash.  Now if you do it too long, it's a little bit awkward, it's a little bit weird. And if you do it like too much, like, hi, it's a little weird too. So just do the one for half a second, up to one second, that's called an eyebrow flash. And that's a friendship signal.  Now you don't see this signal as much in Japan, they don't tend to use their eyebrows as much, but everywhere else in the world, the eyebrow flash, just like that, says hi, I like you, you're cool, let's be friends. So if you pair it with a smile, with a wave, handshake, or even a shaka, that's a good way to say, you're cool, I'm cool, let's be friends. And that is your Body Language Tip of the Week, and if you want to learn more, you can visit BodyLanguageBoss.com. But now, onto the meaty part of the show, our favorite part, I've got a really cool guest for you today. His name is Jared Larson, CEO of, what is your company, Jared? Breakaway Consulting and YDP for Life, which is a youth development program as well. Youth development program. Well, thank you for being here, I'm going to shake your hand. That's a good handshake. Yeah, that's a good one. So what exactly do you do, Jared? Yeah, that's a great question. It's really interesting. I've had an opportunity over my business career to really establish what my purpose or my calling in life is, and I think that so many people go through life wondering and struggling what that is, and not really giving much purpose or thought to it. And I think about six years ago, I really made a purposeful and intentional desire to find that. For me, I think if I were to answer what I do, I'd change people's lives. I help transform businesses, I help transform people, and I give them that opportunity to step into their own greatness. Wow. The one thing you said that really struck out to me was finding your passion. And I know so many people, and I've been one of those people who's just going through the motions at a job that they hate, just showing up, but in my own life, when I finally found something I love to do that passion, it changed everything. So is that what you help people do? You help them find the purpose and the passion in their life? Yeah, absolutely. Starting with businesses, right? And it's so interesting, as I come in and consult with various different businesses, we have to start at the personal level. So many people focus on the business and the metrics and the numbers. What I really believe in is in transformational consulting, and that is starting at the human level, at that personal level, that one-on-one conversation, and really helping them understand who they are, who they want to be, and where they want to go. And once we start identifying that people's passions and purposes start aligning with whether it's a corporation, or whether it's a family, or whether it's a relationship or dating, they start understanding what direction they can take, right? Wow. Could you repeat one part for me? You want them to understand who they are? Yeah, who they are, what their purpose is, or their passion. Some people call it a why, and then they know how to get there. And one thing that I hear, and people at home, if you're struggling, if you're watching this and you're thinking, I'm stuck, or you've just been wandering aimlessly, maybe no direction or purpose, I want you to think about this. When we go somewhere, do we simply jump in our car, back out of our garage, and decide to drive somewhere and then make a decision? Or do we make a decision on where we want to go, get in the car, put the seatbelt on, and say, I'm going to TCBY to get white chocolate mousse with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, and you drive straight there. And I know it's kind of funny, but the reality of that situation is, when we know where we're going or headed, we can get there much easier, and it really cuts out this getting stuck. It gives us a little bit of that supreme focus on that end point or that end goal in mind, right? You know, Jared, that's really cool. I was having a conversation just the other day when I was telling me that they felt like they were stuck in a rut. They didn't like their life. They felt uncomfortable.  Sure.  Yeah. So I'm really visual. I would probably draw these two really weird boxes, one down here, and I would say, RB, tell me where you're at today. What does this box represent? And that might be, I'm stuck. I'm struggling. I'm unhappy. I'm not good enough. I don't feel self-worth. My job is just boring. I don't know what that box looks like for that individual. The next question I'm going to do is ask is, I'm going to draw a box up here and I'm going to say, where do you want to be? Who do you want to become and what does this look like? The interesting part is most people that are stuck have not given any thought to this piece. Oh. When they haven't given thought to this piece, it's so challenging to start having those conversations to help them get there. They have no idea where they're going. No idea where they're going. And once they identify this piece, then we can show them and start working with them on the steps that are necessary to get from where they are to who they want to be or become. And I always say be who you be, not who you are. And what I mean by that is be who you are becoming or wanting to become rather than who you are today. And as we live into that becoming piece, it pushes us and it stretches us out of our comfort zone into a different sphere where it's challenging. And it's so healthy. It's been such an amazing piece when I ask people those questions. You know, something that you said to me like really hit me so much that I had to write it down. Be who you are becoming, not who you are. And I think that makes so much sense. I mean if we don't like where we are, but we stay where we are and we keep being the person that we are, we're never going to get any happier. So to imagine and think of the person you want to be in this box up here and then start being that person, that's incredible. And you know what is really strange is I work with athletes. I've worked with some really amazing people that are still stuck in the past. And they believe that their identity or that their role in whom they are today was the past, right? Whether it was a professional football player or whether it was an amazing CEO or business individual, right? Our past has absolutely nothing to do with our future. And it's a really interesting phrase. Our past has absolutely nothing to do with our future. People will argue with me on that. It's really quite funny actually. And they say, you know, I've had this, experienced this. I've been in a relationship or divorced. And I'm really proud of who I've become today. And I say, that's right. The things that you've done, even yesterday and in your past, have helped shape you to who you are today. However, they have nothing to do with you moving forward and the decisions you make from the time that I leave this studio with RB today and the decisions that I make to whom I want to become. And that's the most important thing is we have the ability to change that at any point as long as we take ownership of that process. That's incredible. That's a radical idea that your past has nothing to do with your future. And we're going to hear more about that after a quick break. I'm a firefighter. A teacher. I'm a farmer. I'm a barber. A waitress. A mom. We're all part of your community. Every day we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when you experience a moment of uncertainty, something or someone's behavior that doesn't seem quite right. These are the moments to take a pause. Because if something doesn't feel right, it's probably not. It's not about paranoia or being afraid. It's about standing up and protecting our communities. One detail at a time. Because a lot of little details can become a pattern. We. We. We. We trust our instincts. Just like you should. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. I just walked by and I said, what's happening guys? One word back. Welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone on Think Tech Hawaii on OC16 Television. Now we are here with Jared Larson and we were talking about the gap between where you are and where you want to be. So tell me more about that gap, Jared. Yeah. Well, the gap is something that I believe is what separates the good from the great or the potential average and the achievers. And the reason that I say that is as we live in our life today, our current comfort zone, everything that we know, it feels great, normal. There's routine. There's habits that we've created. When we step outside of that box, it's uncomfortable. It's painful. It hurts a little bit, you know? And I know you've probably done something in your life where you're saying, wow, this just doesn't feel right. The tendency is to fade back into that box, back to where it's comfortable, in essence, not growing. And so what I believe is that the difference between the good and the great are the great have this ability to push past that uncomfortable level. And then they realize that this gap that exists, this seemingly large gap, and sometimes I'll even talk about weight loss, right? Feel that overweight person and their doctor orders them to lose a lot of weight. And this top box represents losing a lot of weight. Sometimes they won't even start the process because the gap looks so big. Wow. Almost impossible, right? That makes sense. I remember, all right, I used to have a day job and when I finally quit the day job to focus on body language, coaching full time, I was terrified out of my wits. I couldn't sleep for weeks, but I knew I had to do it. I knew I had to do it if I was ever going to become the person I wanted to be. Wow. You know, that's so true. In becoming who I wanted to be, I had to come up and people were like saying, you need to have some sort of amazing story. You need to know exactly what you want. And I struggled with, I was wrestling with this idea, but I needed to know what I wanted to be and it didn't come to me easily. Some people have these great ideas to go off to Africa and change the world and that didn't resonate with me. But what I did land on was this, very simple for me, that every morning when I wake up and my two feet hit the ground, I need to have at least one meaningful conversation that by having such could potentially change that individual's life forever. And everything in my life shifted. My consulting shifted. My relationship with my wife shifted. My friendships shifted because rather than focusing on all the ancillary noise and things that can be going on in the world, I focused on being present with RB today. I focused on being present with our listeners and really engaging on a deeper level and saying, what is it that I could give that would be so meaningful and purposeful today as I deliver something that by giving it could potentially change their life forever? And I just love that. Wow. That was an awesome, awesome experience Jared. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I have another question for you. What are some of the biggest obstacles people face when they start trying to get out of that lower box? Sure. I think that a couple of the first things that happen, number one is they don't dream big enough. So it's very simple. A lot of times people will go from this box and they'll set a very maybe short-minded or not very big goal because they know that they can achieve it easy. Right? We're success driven. We want to have success in our life. So we set these very shallow goals just so that we can achieve them and achieve them. Not suggesting that that's bad. However, I want you to dream big. I want you to start thinking about the impact that you can have by creating something or by doing something, maybe it's shifting into a new job or a new relationship. I want you to dream big and create that. If you fall short of that, then you fall short to right here and that's okay. The next thing that I think people struggle with is looking at that gap, seeing this huge gap, the word is slipping my mind, but there's this huge gap and not understanding the systematic steps that they can take to get there. They focus on the end result more than they do on the daily behaviors that it requires to achieve the result. So you need to have that bigger goal to dream for, but you also need to have a daily regimen of steps to take you up that staircase to get you all the way there. Absolutely. And so if you just have the dream but you don't have any of the steps, you won't get there. Is that what you're saying? You bet. And here's the million dollar question.  I'm going to ask that again.  And that's the million dollar question, is what you're doing pushing you, propelling you or catapulting you into who you want to become? Or is it dragging you down? Is it dragging you down? Wow. So what are some of the advice you give people when they're trying to design this daily schedule to get from where they are, where they want to be? Yeah.  For example, I may ask a question, Arby, take me back to a time when you remember you were so happy. You just had this energy and this light and something was exuding from you. When was that? I think that might have been the last time I took my dog to the dog park. I'm a bit of an animal lover. I also feel that every time I get on the stage to answer a question or to actually physically help someone with their body language. Incredible. I want you to remember that feeling. I want you to remember that energy because that was some light and peace that's saying, stay in this zone, stay here, right? And I want you to recreate that through the steps that you're going to take in who you want to become. And we'll take the goal and now we're going to back into it to what you can be doing daily. More often than not, I'll say show me your calendar and I'll show you your future. Explain that. Show me your calendar. Show me your future. It's so interesting as I ask people to show me their calendar, they say, oh yeah, no, no, I've got a calendar. It's awesome.  I've a lot of appointments. And I say, no, really, show me your calendar. Let me see it on your phone. Let me see it digitally or in your day planner, however they use it. And more often than not, it's just white space. If we don't plan, if we're not purposeful and intentional, achieving those goals is very challenging. So, the next piece is to sit down and start time blocking the most important pieces in your life to help you achieve that goal, putting it on your calendar, actually having it in writing. And so the most important pieces are going to be those parts that get you to where you want to be, that help you be that person you want to be. Is that right? Absolutely. And we start with values. So if you just start filling up your calendar with stuff, usually it's not the most important stuff. For example, I love people. I will give. I will serve all day long. Guess who goes on my calendar last? Yourself. Myself. That's exactly right. When I need to be filling up my gas tank and maybe putting that on the calendar ahead of other things. So as we identify, maybe it's our top six values, we can then take that and we can time block them in order of importance in our life to ensure that we're giving an appropriate or proportionate amount of time to the things that we want to grow in our life. So when you say values, do you mean things like courage, like honesty? Are those the values you're thinking of? You know, I wouldn't say what that value is. For some of you, the value may be health. Others it may be a relationship. Others it might be faith. It could be courage. It could be honesty. It's part of the goal that you're shooting for. Absolutely. Oh, okay. And then what we do is we take that and let's say health is one of mine and financial security. But health is my highest priority. I'll make sure that I put cycling, working out, or running ahead of my priority for financial security and maybe that's work and different ideals here. However, so often people do it backwards. That makes so much sense. That makes so much sense that okay, the person that you want to be is helping and financially secure and has a great relationship with their spouse. Like you are going to put those things first above anything else that comes up in the day. So that your daily steps are consciously the first part of every day is getting you towards where you want to be and helping you go up and get closer to this person you want to be. Is that right? You got it. That is so cool. I love sharing the example with my wife. So I love her like crazy and she is one of my highest priorities. The interesting piece is I love my bicycle. I love to ride and cycle and actually at a point, maybe my bike was super up there with my wife in terms of importance. However, certainly my wife is more important than my bike. However, my health and fitness, I would ask myself this question, in riding my bike right now, am I impeding upon the time that I have allowable to push my relationship with my wife to the next level? And if it did impede on that time, my choice was to spend time with my wife and the cycling took the second nature, right? The same is in business. As you identify key performance indicators, as there are metrics and benchmarks that you've established and created within your organization, take them in level of importance. One thing that I really believe is people make things that are called to-do lists. And I wish that I could like scratch that out and never allow someone to ever make it to-do list because what we do with to-do list, we make this awesome long list of 50 things, all of which are typically meaningless and really easy just so we can check them off and feel really good about ourselves. When in reality, we should rename this list, the success list and the things that we have to do to be successful in business. And then we start by prioritizing the most valuable, the most important that will push us and propel us into that second box of who are we coming as an individual or an organization. Wow. Now, I have to tell the audience, all right? I have seen a lot of public speakers. As a body language trainer, I do a lot of public speaking myself and I've gotten to the point where I think a lot of public speakers are kind of boring. But I've seen you speak, Jared, and it was the first time in almost over a year that I had actually been like glued to my notebook taking notes when you spoke. I loved your presentation. You're totally awesome, which is one of the reasons I invited you onto this show.  But what are some other ways people can learn from you? Do you do coaching? How can people learn from you? Yeah, so I do do coaching. I would invite anybody to visit breakaway.consulting. It's a website. I also work in the youth arena. The youth arena. And recently launched a youth development program called YDP for Life on the North Shore of Oahu to work with kids and not just troubled kids. I mean the very thing we're talking about today. How to give children or youth purpose, direction and clarity. I don't believe there's anyone that's bad or necessarily struggling. I believe that we just need to reshift their energy, reshift their focus and mindset and give them tools to be successful in life. And so that's been a piece that has been an amazing part of my life in working with these youth and seeing them achieve so many great things. You know that really hits home for me.  I'm pretty young. But I remember being a teenager, going through high school, trying to figure out what I was going to be, what I was going to do with my life.  And I was like, that's not actually helpful. So if I had had someone like you to come to my school to work with me and help me figure out what I actually am passionate about, what makes me feel alive. The kind of person I want to be. I can just imagine I would have gotten started on this track so much sooner. Yeah. You know, think about this. Think about our businesses. Think about our youth today. All the struggles and challenges that they have is very simple for me as a consultant or a business coach or a life coach to come in here and just start telling you all the things that you should do. But let's realize all the challenges and the struggles that they are faced with on a daily basis. And for me, I got into the coaching arena and the consulting world because I went to some of my mentor most amazing seminars. Oh, life changing. I mean, incredible. And I got this super energy high. I went there and I came back. I'm like, I am changing the world. This is, I got this.  And then I got back to the real world. And what I realized was I slipped back into my same friendships. I slipped back into my same habits. I slipped back into my same routines. And pretty soon I didn't take action on anything. The reality is I want to help give people the tools and the steps and the stick-to-itiveness to form the habits that they need. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. The people that you hang around, the people that you're thinking like and talking with shape your future.  And so I believe that talking to these kids and sharing the importance of mindset and how they think, it's absolutely life changing. So is it a program that parents can get their kids in? Is it something where you go and visit schools? How could people get their kids here? Yeah, all of the above. All of the above. So I can go visit schools. I can be doing motivational speaking gigs. I have Dream Create Live Academy. They're 10 week academies that these youth can participate in. It's hard. So I was that kid back in the day that took your pen and would be beating on the table. People would coin me, which I hate is I'm ADD or I struggle with this. They put me in a box and said, you need medication and my parents refused. They bought me two drumstick lessons and my dad went and bought me whistling lessons and he said, this is how we're gonna overcome it. And with youth, I believe that they tried to tune me over here. And my learning styles rhythmic, I'm a mover, I'm fast paced. I'm that shaker and there are so many kids. But if you allow me to touch, feel, sense, and engage on a deeper level, I learned it was the most incredible, talented individual in the world. There's so many kids out there like that that were just like me or maybe not like me but experienced learning in the same way. I've taken real world principles and smashed them together with experiential learning. Meaning hands on, feeling, touching, being involved. I believe that that can life hack learning for these kids and help take them to the next level faster. So the real difference, it's not enough just to hear about, these are the steps you should take. It's not enough just to sit through a motivational speaker. It sounds like you're saying the magic is when they actually get to practice doing something different. Practice, actually be involved in the experience of changing their lives. And that's what really makes it stick, is that right? Yeah, I think that that's where the rubber meets the road. So many people are talented at standing up and teaching and telling everybody what they need to do. I'm saying, let me do that just a little bit, but my focus is on the corporation. My focus is on the youth and getting them to stand up and teach me because they're doing it themselves. I believe that to master anything you've got to do and you've got to engage and the quicker we can get to that do and that engage, we'll see faster gains. Now from a body language perspective, I think your, suppose that ADD is actually working for you because it makes you more interesting to watch. For the viewers, if you've been watching him, he's actually been using a lot of hand gestures. He's been using a lot of facial expressions, which makes it really engaging to watch. Because our eyes are drawn to movement. So we're just like, what's he gonna do next? And that helps us to key in and actually take in your words. So I think that's one of the reasons you are such a powerful speaker. It's not just your body language, but it's also the content you help just kind of like suck people in and let them hear and feel the content with you. So I am looking forward to talking with you again. We've got like just about a minute left on our show, but is there anything you'd like to say in the last 10, 15 seconds to our viewers? Yeah, I think that there's an old quote that says, logic makes people think, emotion makes people act.  What makes logical sense isn't necessarily what's best.  Yeah, it's not the most manly thing in the world, but I can guarantee you that as you tap into that emotional side, you will see shifts in your life occur and you will achieve that next level of success. Start lifting those muscles that you haven't lifted before and step into your greatness by first dreaming big. Two is create that dream and live the life that you desire. Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much, Jared. It's been such a pleasure to have you here. It's been wonderful. Thank you. Well, this is it, viewers. I'm RB Kelly. This is out of the comfort zone on Think Tech Hawaii on OC16 television. You stay tuned, you'll see other shows following up and I'll be back here if I'm not fired. Next Thursday at 11 a.m. on OC16 television. Thank you everyone and aloha.


Thank you, Rudy. I would again like to welcome all of you to this open session of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research. As you might be able to tell, we still find ourselves in a pandemic-related situation in which I must give my director's report sitting all alone in my conference room. And consistent with the past two plus years, we're just going to have to make the best of it, but hopefully these things shall change. As with the rest of my open session, my director's report presentation is being videotaped, as you just heard, and that recording will be made available as a permanent archive on NHGRI's website, genome.gov. For those of you who are not familiar with my director's report, which is now a fairly well-oiled machine, I want to make you aware of an electronic resource that we put together in the week preceding council meetings each time. It's analogous to a supplemental material section of a published paper. You can access the current resource at the URL shown at the bottom. The slides I'm going to show throughout my director's report are also available at this site for download either in PDF or PowerPoint formats. And then when there's a relevant document number, such as a website or a particular document that you might want to download associated with the slide, we always indicate that with a little number at the very bottom right. And you can simply access that either the website or download the document at this dedicated website. And all these materials and this entire website is also being permanently archived on genome.gov as part of the historic record of this council meeting. Now, there's going to be a number of other presentations, as always, during the open session of this council meeting. My director's report will deliberately try not to have too much redundancy with topics that are going to be otherwise covered. We will have a guest joining us immediately following my director's report. A relatively new institute director, Shannon Zink, who is the director of NIH's National Institute of Nursing Research, will be here to speak about the future of nursing research, innovation, collaboration, and impact. And after that, we'll be joined by another guest, Marie Bernard, who's NIH's chief officer for scientific workforce diversity. And she's going to be here to talk about a chief officer for scientific workforce diversity update. We then will turn our attention to business for the council to help us with. And so that's going to start first with two concept clearances that will be presented by NHGRI Extramural Program Directors. First, Ebony Madden will give a presentation on a concept clearance on diversity genome research centers. And second, Chris Wellington, joined by Ken Wiley, will present a concept clearance on the analysis, visualization, and informatics lab space for Anvil Program. And lastly, Judy Cho, who is a director of the Charles Broughman Institute for Personalized Medicine at the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, will give a workshop report about future directions in genomics and health equity. So with that as a backdrop for what you can expect for the rest of the open session, let me now turn my attention to the director's report and these seven major areas that we've organized my slides as a framework for the topics I want to cover. And we're going to first start off with some general NHGRI updates. And I will start with something truly remarkable. Last month, one of NHGRI's founding staff members and current leaders, Betty Graham, who serves as the director of the Institute's Division of Extramural Operations, reached a truly remarkable milestone, 50, got it, five, zero, 50 years of service in the federal government. Now, Betty has been a member of the NHGRI Extramural Research Program since its inception, being deeply woven into the fabric of all aspects of NHGRI's extramural operations. Betty was the third employee to join the Ben May National Center for Human Genome Research in 1989. Her experience and wisdom about all things related to NIH are deeply respected by her colleagues, both inside and outside of NHGRI. She has a wealth of knowledge, especially about the intricacies of NIH program management. And if that was not impressive enough, Betty's a decorated censor, having won multiple medals on the Veteran World Epi Team and taking home a National Epi Individual Bronze Medal in 2016. Betty Graham is a truly dedicated, remarkably competent and overwhelmingly generous individual. And NHGRI has been fortunate to have her within our ranks, including our leadership ranks for many years. And the federal government has been fortunate to have her as part of the federal workforce for the past 50 years. Oh, by the way, 50 years and counting. So thank you, Betty, for everything that you do. Tina Gatlin, who until this past March was an extramural program director in NHGRI's Division of Genome Sciences, is now a program director in the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering's Division of Interdisciplinary Training. In her over decade long career in NHGRI, Tina managed a portfolio of grants focused on training, genome sciences, and proteomics. She also served as one of the working group coordinators for the NIH Common Fund Protein Capture Regents Program. Over the last several years, Tina was the lead training program director for efforts focused on genome sciences. And in that role, she developed and fostered several NHGRI initiatives centered around promoting career opportunities for trainees and advancing a diverse biomedical workforce. We're grateful to Tina for her many contributions to NHGRI and the NIH Common Fund. And we wish her much success as she continues her work in training and career development. In March, Alexander or Xander Arguillo joined NHGRI as an extramural program director in the Division of Genome Sciences. He oversees an investigator-initiated portfolio in genomic variation, population genetics, and statistical genetics. He is also part of the NHGRI program leadership teams for the Human Genome Reference Program and the Developmental Genotype Tissue Expression or DGTEX Initiative. Xander came to NHGRI from the National Institute of Mental Health, where he was part of the program leadership team for the Psych Incode Consortium and Oversore Portfolio of awards in functional genomics as well as statistical and computational methods development. Now, prior to coming to NIH, Xander was a senior scientific editor at Nature Neuroscience. Now, late last year, NHGRI established the Office of Genomic Data Science or OGDS within the NHGRI office of the director. More recently, we established the initial staffing for this new office. First, Chris Wellington has joined the office as a Computational Genomics and Data Science program director and the new co-lead for the NHGRI Genomic Data Science Analysis Visualization and Informatics Lab Space or ANVIL program. Chris will continue to serve as the point of contact for the Genomic Community Resources G24 identity, U24 funding opportunity announcement, and as a program director for the genomics research to elucidate the genetics of rare diseases for Gregor consortia. Next, Cherjo Sen also joined the office as a Computational Genomics and Data Science program director and serves as a coordinator for the NIH Common Fund Bridge to Artificial Intelligence or Bridge to AI program. Cherjo focuses on artificial intelligence and genomics, workforce development, diversity, equity, and inclusion activities. He also supports training and outreach for the ANVIL program and is leading the educational hub for enhancing diversity in computational genomics and data science. Asaya Yulin is now serving as the NIH Data and Technology Advancement or Data Scholar in the office. In this role, she supports the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability Effort or NCPI and focuses on development implementation and adoption of ontologies, data models, and standards. And lastly, Elena Gannon serves as the policy advisor for the data science and sharing within the office. And in this role, Elena needs MHRI's Scientific Data Sharing Policy Development oversight implementation. She also works with NIH staff, extramural grantees, and international partners on data sharing and privacy policy issues. And keep in mind that all these individuals in this office are under the leadership of the head of the office, the director of the office, Valentina de Francesca. Moving on, the NHRI Training Diversity and Health Equity or TIDE office, another one of the relatively new offices within the NHRI office of the director, hosted a virtual workshop last month entitled Future Directions in Genomics and Health Equity Research. The workshop's goal was to identify research gaps and opportunities that could help address health disparities and improve health equity in genomics. And over 300 participants attended the workshop, which included a series of presentations and panels and breakout groups on topics such as moving from health disparities to health equity in genomics, current research in genomics and health equity, and structural factors needed to support genomics and health equity research. And the workshop report and video recording is available on NHRI's website, genome.gov. And also, you'll hear more details about this workshop from Judy Cho later in this open session of today's Council meeting. I hope all of you heard about the remarkable advance reported in April of this year, when the telomere to telomere or T2T consortium published the first complete gapless sequence of a human genome, roughly two decades after the human genome project produced the first draft human genome sequence. This remarkable scientific achievement reflected a joint effort that involved the leadership of investigators supported by both NHRI's extramural research program and our intramural research program. And the NHRI office of communications took the lead in communicating this historic achievement to the press and the public, and the announcement was a culmination of nearly a year of planning between NHRI communication staff and dozens of T2T consortium researchers, university and institutional communications offices and members of the press and public. The success of these collective efforts are really nicely represented by various outcomes. For example, between March 31st and April 3rd, NHRI and T2T received mentions in 1074 news articles that collectively have a circulation of 998 million unique visitors per month. NHRI's website, genome.gov, received more than 13,000 page views of the news release and over 7800 page views of the T2T landing page and over 5600 page views on a web profile of NHRI intramural investigator Adam Philippe, who was one of the co-chairs of the T2T consortium. So this was a raging success both scientifically and in terms of capturing a lot of attention by the press and the general public. And part of this was NHRI's Twitter account at genome.gov, which received over 80 million appearances on people's Twitter feeds, more than 3 million views for our NHRI account over the past 30 days, which is by the way a record high, and over 50,000 views for a special T2T animation. In addition, I wrote a commentary that was published in Scientific American about completing the human genome sequence again, which was featured on the Scientific American homepage and received a shout out from Scientific American editor-in-chief Laura as a quote, fascinating and fun, what does it all means piece on today's big T2T announcement and a quote. So moving on to some general NIH updates. First, this guy, Boomerang Francis. Recall that at the February council meeting, I reported that Francis Collins had Boomerang back to NHRI on a full-time basis as a senior investigator in our intramural research program following his remarkable greater than 12-year tenure as the NIH director. So we had him back in the NHGRI house. But his full-time status with us did not even last three months. And in February, Francis Boomerang back out of here agreed to serve as the acting science advisor to President Biden, an acting co-chair of the president's council on advisors and science and technology. Well, I can tell you that as he did throughout roughly 12 years as NIH director, Francis will continue to direct his NHGRI based research laboratory while also providing continued service to our country in yet another crucial scientific leadership role. And then in a related way, Alondra Nelson has been named the acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy or OSTP with plans for her to serve in this capacity until a permanent director is nominated and confirmed. Under her leadership, OSTP's six policy divisions will advance critical administration priorities in science and technology. And Alondra was also named deputy assistant to the president. A renowned scholar of science, technology, medicine, and social inequality, she has already been serving as the deputy director of the newly created OSTP science and society division. And then in February, Robert Kaliff was sworn in as the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or FDA. Previously, Rob served in this capacity from February of 2016 till January of 2017. Prior to joining the FDA, this time he was head of medical strategy and senior advisor and alphabet incorporated and professor of medicine and vice chancellor for clinical and translational research at Duke University. Then in April, Norman, or as he's referred to as Ned Sharpless, stepped down as the 15th director of the National Cancer Institute or NCI, a position he had held since 2017. Ned also served as acting commissioner of the FDA for seven months in 2019 before returning to the NCI directorship. At NIH, he championed health equity, developed important programs in data science, and advocated forcefully for policies to ensure continued support for investigator initiated research and diversity in the cancer research workforce. NCI principal deputy director Doug Lowy will now once again serve as acting director until the new NCI director is appointed, serving as acting director as something Doug has a lot of experience doing over the years. And actually in news of today, and I actually just saw the press release or press announcement come into my inbox, today, Julie Gerberding assumes the position of chief executive officer of the foundation for NIH or FNIH. Now FNIH raises funds and creates and manages alliances with public and private institutions in support of NIH's mission. Now Julie previously served as chief patient officer and executive vice president for population health and sustainability at Merck. Prior to that, she headed Merck's vaccine division. Earlier, she was the first woman to serve as the CDC director. Her distinguished career has earned her global recognition, for example, she has been included in Forbes magazine's 100 most powerful women in the world and time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Then on the policy front, NIH is implementing a general provision in the 2022 consolidated appropriations act that makes reporting to NIH by NIH funded institutions mandatory quote, when individuals identified as a principal investigator or key personnel in an NIH notice of award are removed from their position or otherwise disciplined due to concerns about harassment, bullying, retaliation, or hostile working conditions, end of quote. Now previously, NIH lacked clear authority to require funded institutions to report to NIH whether personnel changes to an NIH grant are related to harassment. Passage of this bill into law ensures NIH is made aware when the reason for the personnel change is harassment and therefore strengthens NIH's ability to take the necessary action to ensure in safe work environments wherever NIH funded activities are conducted. This is an important milestone in support of NIH's commitment to do what we can do to end harassment and improve civility in biomedical research. Moving on to budget and appropriations, now at the time of the February Council meeting, the government was operating under a continuing resolution. On March 15th, though, President Biden signed a fiscal year 2022 omnibus appropriations bill into law. The bill included a 5.3 percent increase for NIH along with an increase of no less than 3.4 percent for each NIH Institute and Center. NHGRI received a 3.8 percent increase, bringing our total budget to $639 million in fiscal year 2022. The bill also appropriated $1 billion for our advanced research projects agency for health or ARPA-H, something I'll be talking about more in my next slide. Now, President Biden's fiscal year 2023 budget request was unveiled on March 28th, reflecting the White House's priorities and serving as an opening gambit for the appropriations process for next fiscal year. The budget does not have granularity at the level of individual NIH Institutes and Centers, but does propose a top-line budget of $49 billion for NIH. Now, while this would reflect a nearly 9 percent increase for NIH overall, such an increase would include additional funding for ARPA-H. Now, news outlets report that House and Senate appropriators are meeting to begin discussions on the fiscal year 2023 budget limit, so stay tuned for more information in the months ahead. Now, very much related to the fiscal year 2022 budget is the recently authorized Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health or ARPA-H, which aims to conduct high impact biomedical and health research with the mission, quote, to benefit the health of all Americans by catalyzing health breakthroughs that cannot readily be accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity, end of quote. Now, last summer, the Office of Science and Technology apology, or ROSDP, and the NIH published a commentary in Science outlining a vision for ARPA-H. They also held information sessions and numerous meetings with different organizations and convened a total of 16 listening sessions to get community feedback, including from patient advocacy groups, industry, and scientific professional organizations. Now, as I mentioned in the last slide, the fiscal year 2022 out of us provided $1 billion that will be available for three years to launch ARPA-H. And I can tell you that the ARPA-H director will be appointed by the president. And that was information that came out in March. And then most recently in April, the decision was made to transfer ARPA-H to NIH and to have its director reporting to the HHS secretary. And finally, as I just mentioned, the president requested $5 billion in his fiscal year 2023 budget to continue building ARPA-H. So lots happening, lots more to come with ARPA-H, and this is the latest that we know. So with that, I will now move on to some general genomics updates. In March, Arthur Riggs, a medical researcher whose experiments with recombinant DNA led to the development of synthetic insulin passed away. He was 82 years old. His research across the field of medical science has profoundly improved the health and treatment of millions of individuals with diabetes and cancer and helped to launch the genetic engineering revolution of the biotechnology industry. The International Common Disease Alliance, or ICDA, is a scientific consortium that aims to define barriers to progress in tackling the maps to mechanisms to medicines challenge. Identify opportunities for new projects and facilitate international collaborations. In March, the ISDA held its second virtual scientific plenary meeting, which consisted of presentations and discussions focused on current challenges and successes in advancing genetic maps, international genomics resources, analytical methods, and cellular models for maps to mechanisms to medicines. The new ICDA executive committee was announced as part of the plenary meeting, which now consists of the individuals shown here. And as one of their first activities, the executive committee hosted a series of virtual community town halls in April. And I can tell you that the video recordings of the plenary meeting and the community town halls can be found on the ICDA YouTube channel. The Global Biodata Coalition, or the GBC, was established as a coalition of life sciences and biomedical research funders that aims to optimize the funding and management of biodata resources worldwide. Now, the GBC has two priority aims. First, to better coordinate and share approaches for efficient management and growth of the biodata infrastructure, and two, to stabilize and ensure sustainable financial support for the global biodata infrastructure. And as an important step in its maturation last month, GBC appointed Guy Cochran as its founding executive director. Now, Guy has over two decades of experience working with and leading biodata resources and as an authority on large-scale international genome sequence data sharing. The U.S. National Academies of Sciences recently announced their newly elected members. A particular interest to NHGRI and the genomics community are the individuals listed here. Note two former members of this advisory council among this group, Mark Johnston and Jay Shinduri. And in addition, NHGRI is particularly proud to see Julie Segri on this list. As many of you know, Julie is a senior investigator and branch chief within the institute's intramural research program. So congratulations to all of those individuals. And with that, I will now move on to some summaries about the NHGRI extramural research program. The Centers for Excellence in Genomic Science or SEGS program supports the interdisciplinary research teams for developing highly innovative approaches in genomics research. And NHGRI recently made three awards at institutions that had not previously been part of the SEGS program, all using the designated Emerging SEGS or ESEGS funds. These awards went to the Center for Live Cell Genomics at University of California, Santa Cruz, the Center for Ad Mixture Science and Technology at the University of California, San Diego, and the Center for Genomic Information encoded by RNA, Nucleotide Modification at Wild Medical College at Cornell University. At this past March, NHGRI re-issued the funding opportunity announcement for the SEGS program for an additional three years. The next due date is June 22nd of 2022. The Clinical Sequencing Evidence Generating Research or SEESER program aims to generate evidence related to the clinical utility of genome sequencing with a major emphasis on participant diversity and engagement. In November 2021, SEESER investigators from the Hudson Alpha SouthSeek clinical site published a paper about the utility of genome sequencing as a first-line diagnostic test for critically ill infants. While genome sequencing is becoming less common as a diagnostic tool for pediatric patients, it is less often used for the medical management of infants. Now, the SouthSeek study focused on evaluating the utility of genome sequencing in one of the largest cohorts of infants in neonatal intensive care units, which included 74% racial, ethnic minority, or rural participants. The investigators described the results for 367 infants tested by genome sequencing of these 30% received a genetic diagnosis. Additionally, 57% of the detected genomic variants were not detected by other genetic tests. And this study extends previous work by recruiting participants from ethically and racially diverse backgrounds as well as rural, medically underserved areas. The Clinical Genome Resource or ClinGen evaluates and disseminates the clinical relevance of genes and genomic variants for use in precision medicine and research. ClinGen is committed to promoting justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in all aspects of its ecosystem from the tools it generates to the workforce it develops. To emphasize its commitment to these values, the ClinGen Ancestry and Diversity Working Group with input from ClinGen's steering committee and other members of the ClinGen Consortium led the development of a Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion action plan. This plan provides a roadmap of measurable and actionable goals for ClinGen to pursue in three key domains. First, contribute data, tools, and resources to the genomic knowledge base that will enhance equity in patient care across global populations. Second, develop recommendations for use of population descriptors in genetics and genomics. And third, foster diversity, equity, and inclusion in the ClinGen workforce. ClinGen also assembled the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Advisory Board to review the content of the generated plan to identify gaps and to provide advice as ClinGen embarks on implementing these goals. And as such, the plan is undergoing review and may be refined in the future. And the plan and advisory board roster can be viewed on the ClinGen website. The Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative, or GGMC, was established in 2016 to create a community of global leaders dedicated to advancing genomic medicine implementation. The organization was started within the U.S. National Academies of Medicine and supported by NIH. Now GGMC aims to realize the full potential of genomic medicine worldwide for improving individual and population health with a mission to identify barriers and solutions, lead and develop programs, and leverage global expertise to bring genomic medicine to low resource settings worldwide through educational programs, policy development, and implementation science. Now GGMC expanded in 2018 to include more observational components, needing together large cohort studies such as the All of Us Research Program, the UK Biobank, and over 70 global cohorts in the International 100K Cohort Consortium, or IHCC. And recently, the GGMC Board of Directors decided to establish GGMC as an organization housing additional programs with a common thread of genomic medicine implementation. It provides financial management and operational support for a variety of programs. Also, its genomic medicine implementation arm was recast as the Global Genomic Medicine Consortium, or G2MC. Other potential programs may be added at a later date. And more information about all of this is available on the organization's 2021 annual report. NHGRI's Technology Development Program continues to enable the development of new and improved technologies fostering genomic discovery. NHGRI in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has three open funding opportunities designed to accelerate innovation and early development in the rapidly emerging field of single molecule protein sequencing. And the next application due date for these activities is June 15th, 2022. NHGRI also supports technology development more broadly through parent funding announcements and through targeted announcements such as the advancing genomic technology development notice of special interest or NOSI. And this genomic technology NOSI uses the standard receipt dates. The recently funded Technology Development Coordinating Center, or TDCC, at the Jackson Laboratory has organized two virtual outreach events. On March 23, NHGRI and the TDCC are hosting a technology area forum entitled understanding cells and context spatial transcriptomics. The event will highlight the strengths and limitations of current DNA sequencing and imaging based methods that are used in spatial gene expression profiling. And then on July 7th, the TDCC will be hosting a virtual symposium on understanding recent advances in genome technology development. Biomedical researchers, learners, and clinical providers will have an opportunity to gain a fundamental understanding of how new genomic technologies are utilized and hear about emerging opportunities and challenges in the field. And both of these events are free and they're virtual and they're open to the public although registration is required. NHGRI Small Business Program awards grants to support the work of genomics companies related to commercialization as well as for technology transfer of academic innovations. NHGRI often showcases our small business grantees through products created by our Office of Communications. For example, genome sequencing techniques and technologies developed by the companies Circulomics, Aramae Genomics, and Dovetail Genomics were instrumental in contributing to the recent generation of a truly complete human genome sequence. And a recent feature article on our website genome.gov tells the story of how their work is fueling such important advances in genomics. NHGRI aims to prepare a talented and diverse genomics workforce by providing both institutional and individual funding through a variety of mechanisms, including individual fellowships and career development awards, institutional awards, and diversity supplements. And programs are offered at the undergraduate, post-fact laureate, and graduate, post-doctoral, and faculty levels. While the seventh annual training and career program meeting was recently held at Duke University, the meeting gathered over 200 in-person attendees and over 150 virtual attendees. And NHGRI supported trainees presented their research and met with other trainees and researchers from across the NHGRI training programs. And the trainees that participated included those from the Centers of Excellence in Ethical Legal and Social Applications Research Program, the Diversity Action Plan programs, the T32 training programs, and individual awardees of fellowships and career development programs. The trainees presented posters, gave lightning talks, and attended scientific lectures presented by their peers. And other highlights included keynote talks, network lunches, and various concurrent sessions. NHGRI has developed a new awards program to recognize extramural investigators who are making sustained and substantial contributions to enhancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, or a DEIA in the Genomics Workforce. The Genomics Workforce DEIA award will recognize an extramural early-stage investigator and an established investigator or group of investigators annually that exemplify their commitment to enhancing the diversity of the Genomics Workforce. To be considered for the award, a nominee must have an NHGRI grant funding and the due date for nominations this September 1, 2022. The program is being administered by the Training Diversity and Health Equity or TIDE Office at NHGRI, which aims to promote workforce diversity, develop and support training programs that provide leadership to reduce health disparities and to foster health equity. And the NHGRI extramural training program currently has three funding opportunities focused on Genomics Workforce Diversity. The Geno research experiences to attract talented undergraduates into the genomics field to enhance diversity, it's a mouthful, also abbreviated great program, supports educational activities encouraging undergraduates from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups underrepresented in biomedical workforce, to pursue training and careers in the scientific, medical, ethical, social, and or legal areas of genomics research. Now applications for this program are due July 1st. The Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation or FIRST program is an NIH Common Fund initiative and it is accepting applications to facilitate institutions in building a self-reinforcing community of scientists through the recruitment of a critical mass of early career faculty with a demonstrated commitment to inclusive excellence. Applications for this program are due July 12th. And the NIH Science Education Partnership Award, or CEPA program, supports pre-kindergarten to grade 12 and informal science education activities that enhance the diversity of the biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research workforce and that foster a better understanding of NIH funded behavioral, biomedical, and clinical research and its public health implications. And applications for this program are due July 13th. And with that, I will move on to the NIH Common Fund and other trans-NIH efforts, starting with the H3Africa program. And remember that the central goal of NIH Common Fund's Human Heredity in Health in Africa or H3Africa program is to develop a sustainable and collaborative African genomics research enterprise. Now in its 10th and final year, H3Africa has published over 600 papers with many additional manuscripts in the works. Recent papers highlighted on this slide reveal a previously undescribed gut microbiome taxa, described methylation patterns in adults who were in utero during the Rwanda genocide and provide proposed guidelines for feedback of individual genomic findings in African research settings. In addition to publications, H3Africa investigators have played major roles in the update of consortium recommendations into policies for genomics research in African countries. As one example, groups funded as part of the H3Africa ethical, legal, and social implications research projects have collaborated with their local governments and contributed to national guidelines on human genomics research and community engagement in both Uganda and Botswana. And the final consortium meeting will occur at the end of this month in Nigeria and investigators and fellows will highlight the impact of H3Africa on their careers on research infrastructure in Africa and on advances in genomics research. The Undiagnosed Diseases Network or UDN is an NIH common fund program that aims to improve the level of diagnosis for rare and undiagnosed conditions through a team-based approach. UDN investigators from Baylor Model Organism Screening Center published an article describing model matching, an online investigator matchmaking tool designed to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration and rare disease research. As of January 2022, users have access to a database containing 5383 model organism genes that correspond to over 6,000 human genes. The same UDN Baylor investigators contributed to an article describing a novel neurodevelopmental phenotype associated with the mutation in the Neuron Navigator II or NAV-2 gene. While mouse studies show NAV-2 protein is critical in the development of the central nervous system, particularly the cerebellum, little was known about the role of the NAV-2 protein in humans. And by screening exome sequence data from individuals affected with sporadic cerebellar dysplasia, investigators identified the first human with bilionic loss of function variance in NAV-2. And through animal model analyses, investigators were able to identify a potentially conserved role for NAV-2 protein in central nervous system development across multiple species. The NIH Common Fund has initiated a new program of interest to NHGRI, the Sematic Mosaicism Across Human Tissues, or SMOT program. The SMOT network aims to transform our understanding of how somatic mosaicism in human cells influences human biology and health. Five funding opportunities have been released for the various components of the SMOT network shown here in colored boxes. The components include a tissue procurement center and genome characterization centers, technology and tool developments projects, a data analysis center, and an organizational center. The various components will generate and analyze validated data and produce a genomic variant catalog as well as a workbench to facilitate use of these data by the broader scientific community. And the application deadline for all five components is July 8 of this year. And lastly, the mission of the all of us research program is to accelerate health research and medical breakthroughs, enabling individual prevention, treatment and care for all of us. The program will partner with one million or more people across the United States to build the most diverse biomedical data resource of its kind, thereby helping researchers gain better insights into the biological, environmental, and behavioral factors that influence health. The all of us research program released its first genomic data set in March. And this data release, which features whole genome sequences from nearly 100,000 participants, as well as genotyping array data, genomic variant data, and a suite of genomics analysis tools is available via the all of us researchers workbench cloud-based platform. Now the researcher workbench also includes information from participants survey responses, Fitbit devices, electronic health records, and physical measurements. And keep in mind that a key feature of the all of us research program is its focus on diverse participants with about 50% of the data coming from individuals who identify with a racial or ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in research. And this contrasts with the vast majority of existing global genome-wide association study data, which is primarily derived from individuals of European ancestry. So we encourage interested in researchers to register for access to the all of us researcher workbench in order to start using the data and tools for their research. And moving on to the NHSR activities and the areas of communication, policy, and education. In December of 2021, the NHSR history of genomics program hosted a symposium that addressed the history of eugenics and scientific racism and their complex legacies in the modern health sciences. The symposium illustrated the need for more important and more informed public discussions about the connection between existing and emerging genetic and genomic technologies and the historic and present day uses of genetics and genomics and social behavioral research. It also raised issues about how NHGRI as a key funder of genomics research communicate about the state of the science and its limitations. The NHGRI history of genomics program will next host two roundtable meetings to further explore these two themes. A meeting on May 25th will address the question does genetic and genomic screening keep open the door to eugenics? At this meeting panelists will discuss historical and present day eugenics and scientific racism in the context of existing and developing genetic and genomic screening technologies. Then in December, a second meeting will address the promise and pearls of social behavioral genomics at which the discussion will focus on the historic uses of genetics and genomics in social behavioral research, including the historical connections of research into the genetics of social mobility and educational attainment with antisemitism eugenics and scientific racism. On national DNA day this year that is April 25th the NHGRI Office of Communications released a fully revamped version of its incredibly popular talking glossary which included a new name the talking glossary of genomic and genetic terms. This new and improved educational resource now features audio recordings from 37 NHGRI experts to date the new talking glossary has 222 terms of which 142 have new accompanying illustrations and 15 have new associated animations. There are plans for additional terms animations and and illustrations in the coming months and we really encourage you to check out the new talking glossary and please spread the word about its availability. The seventh and final event in the genomics and the media virtual lecture series will feature Magdalena Skipper the Editor-in-Chief of Nature and that'll occur on June 30th. Now this last lecture will cap the highly successful series which featured the trailblazers and science communications shown here and demonstrated various approaches for communicating about genomics as well as the unique challenges and opportunities that different communications media can bring. In terms of our social media presence if you're not aware Ask Dr. Genome is a monthly series of live Twitter Q&As with myself and invited genomic experts. The series offers a way to engage with members of the public that is me namely students educators and science curious Twitter followers who want to know more about a particular genomics topic. Anyone can tweet us a question about the designated genomics topic and we retweet an answer from my account. And in March I was joined by Josh Getty CEO of the all of us research program to answer questions about precision medicine and the generation of diverse genomic data sets. And then in April I was joined by Karen Miga who answered questions about the telomere to telomere consortium's effort to generate a truly complete human genome sequence. And with all this communications activities I'm proud to tell you that the NHGRI Office of Communications was recently nominated for a Golden Post award for best Twitter presence. The Golden Post awards recognize outstanding use of social media by government agencies in the United States and out of more than 400 entries NHGRI was named one of the top five finalists. In addition the NHGRI Office of Communication was also nominated for a shorty award which honors the best of social media and digital specifically for its work on the history of eugenics and scientific racism symposium in December. So congratulations to the Office of Communications. Now as I mentioned earlier April 25th was National DNA Day and like every other year NHGRI hosted several programs and offered educational resources to mark the occasion. This year DNA Day was celebrated virtually throughout the month of April and NHGRI hosted two H3Africa DNA Day presentations featuring the H3Africa researchers shown here. And then on April 25th NHGRI hosted Carter Clinton who's a postdoctoral scholar in the Departments of Anthropology and Biology at Pennsylvania State University for the Louise M. Slaughter National DNA Day lecture. And Carter shared his research investigating New York African burial ground population soil samples to better understand health disparities in living African Americans and discuss the urgency for diversity in genomic databases. And the Society Coordinating Committee for Practitioner Education and Genomics or ISCC PEG focuses on integrating genomic literacy into clinical practice. The group does this by making presentations and professional meetings creating pharmacogenomic continuing education modules and publishing a direct to consumer genetic testing FAQ resource. Now the ISCC PEG also sponsors scholars who work directly with ISCC PEG mentors on projects and so recently a scholar created a gene test 101 app to assist non-genetics healthcare providers navigate the genetic testing process. And the ISCC PEG's 11th annual meeting was held in February and featured keynote presentation by NHGRI acting deputy director Vence Bonham. The meeting also included reports from two new project groups a nursing genomics group and an LGBTQI plus issues in genomics group. And last but not least I have a few updates about NHGRI's intramural program starting with Bill Gall one of the NHGRI intramural investigators who received the erotus or rare diseases Europe lifetime achievement award. This award recognizes those lifelong dedication to addressing the needs of people living with rare and undiagnosed diseases and also honors him for the creation of the undiagnosed diseases program within NIH. So congratulations to Bill. And then NHGRI intramural investigator Neil Hanchard has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation. So congratulations to Neil. And then Diana Bianchi who is both an NHGRI intramural investigator but is also as you know director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development is a finalist for the Samuel J. Hyman service to America metals also known as the SAMIs. She is a COVID-19 response finalist for initiating critical research to understand the medical implications of the COVID-19 virus and underserved populations. So congratulations to Diana. And one thing I wanted to announce at this open session of an advisory council meeting is something related to a blue ribbon panel review that will now take place for our intramural research program. Now each NIH Institute and Center's intramural research program or IRP is required to undergo a blue ribbon panel review roughly every 10 years. These reviews aim to provide very high-level feedback and general input about the current state and future opportunities of the various NIH's intramural research programs which complements the more detailed investigator by investigator reviews that take place every four years by the Institute or Center's Board of Scientific Counselors. Now NHGRI has conducted two blue ribbon panel reviews of our intramural research program to date. The most recent one was held in 2011 and 2012 when Dan Kastner took the helm as scientific director. While with the recent appointment of Charles Rotimi as the new NHGRI scientific director it seemed an appropriate time to have a blue ribbon panel review of the NHGRI IRP again. And so as such I have assembled the following panel of eight external experts and put them under the leadership of two outstanding co-chairs who are members of this advisory council, Gal Jarvik and Lynn Jordy. And this panel will conduct their review from essentially now May 2022 until a year from now, May 2023. And you can expect that the co-chairs will present their final report from this blue ribbon panel review at the May 2023 meeting of this advisory council. I on the broader NHGRI leadership look forward to the feedback and advice from the panel about our intramural research program which currently has an annual budget in the neighborhood of about $125 million and we're particularly excited to hear their thoughts about the coming decade for our intramural research program. And before I end my director's report I want to again remind you about a user-friendly one-stop shop for staying connected with me and NHGRI and by visiting this webpage through this convenient URL and then scrolling down you get this menu of nine major resources associated with the institute. This includes links to genome.gov website, the genomics landscape monthly newsletter, and my Twitter feed. There's also convenient links to the 2020 NHGRI strategic vision, the NHGRI brochure. As I mentioned our new talking glossary of genomic and genetic terms are building a diverse genomics workforce action agenda, the Genome TV channel of YouTube, and the NHGRI history program set of all histories. And if those sites aren't what you're looking for I gotta do a scroll a little bit further down and you will find a short list of some recommended videos of mine and if you keep going down even further a list of some of my recent podcasts and op-eds. And I hope people find this one-stop shop helpful when trying to stay connected with me and NHGRI. Finally a personal thanks to my many NHGRI staff members who contributed to the slides and associated materials that I just reviewed and as always a group effort to pull this off. Huge amount of information I just conveyed and that also included the efforts of our office communications staff for creating the electronic resource associated with my director's report. And of course a special thanks to my ringleader for helping me for over a decade now do this Chris Rudderstrad. I usually show a picture of Chris at this point but Chris declined providing a photo of this time but rather offered up this photo of which is now it's right up here the entrance to my director's suite where a masked cardboard version of myself has been standing by for the last few weeks as we are welcoming staff back to the physical workspace. So with that I will stop and bring my director's report to a close and I am happy to take any questions if any council members have questions. I will look for hands if there are any questions. All right thank you very much Eric for that report. Dr. Shannon Zank has joined us. She's next on the agenda. Would you like to introduce her?