National Institutes of Health Stetten Museum, Bethesda

Hours: Monday to Friday, normal business hours
Location: Building 60, the Cloister, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20814-1460
Contact: 301-496-6610, history@nih.gov
Access: contact museum
Website address: http://history.nih.gov/museum/ 

The DeWitt Stetten, Jr., Museum of Medical Research, also known as the NIH Stetten Museum, preserves and interprets through physical and virtual exhibits the material culture of the scientific work of the NIH.  Established in 1986, the NIH Stetten Museum collects instruments important to scientific research, especially instruments and technologies developed at the NIH.  The Museum also collects non-scientific objects related to the general history of the NIH, including architectural artifacts, artwork, and clothing.  The collection can be searched online here.

The NIH Office of History Archival collections contains manuscript collections, oral histories, photographs and audio-visual materials relating to the National Institutes of Health and its predecessor, the Public Health Service.  The Archives maintains an active reference, subject and biographical ready-reference collection as well as an ongoing commitment to protect and preserve materials in preservation digital format.  Selected image collections are available on Flickr.  The Oral History Archive has transcribed interviews available online.

NIH History also has an AIDS history website, “In Their Own Words…NIH Researchers Recall the Early Years of AIDS.”

Stetten Fellowship in the History of Biomedical Sciences and Technology of Medicine—funding constraints have resulted in the suspension of this fellowship for the foreseeable future.

The Stetten Museum has three exhibits on display in NIH's Building 10, the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center.  The exhibits are Innovation and Invention: NIH and Prosthetic Heart Valves; The Stadtman Way: A Tale of Two Biochemists at NIH; and Marshall Nirenberg: Discovering the Genetic Code.  The Stetten Museum also displays scientific instruments and other objects from its collection in several buildings on the NIH campus in Bethesda.  Featured exhibits include: “Santiago Ramón y Cajal Exhibit;” “Electron Microscope;” and “Varian A-60 NMR.”

The museum also has a number of virtual exhibits.  These exhibits are available online through the museum website.  Virtual exhibits include: Marshall Nirenberg: Discovering the Genetic Code; The Stadtman Way; A History of the Pregnancy Test Kit; Human Genetics and Medical Research; Martin Rodbell: How Cells Respond to Signals; The AMINCO-Bowman Spectrophotometer; Converging Pathways of Pain Research at NIDCR; Roscoe Brady & Gaucher Disease; Joseph Goldberger & the War on Pellagra; Synthetic Opiates and Opiods; The Laboratory Instrument Computer; Howard Bartner & 40 Years of Medical Illustration; Equal Arm Analytical Balances; Medical Posters; Medical Instruments; and Early Computing at the NIH.