Straight talk with...Harvey Fineberg. Interview by Prashant Nair

In 1970, the US government chartered the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a component of the National Academies, to serve as an independent counsel on issues concerning health policy. Today, the IOM has become a leading adviser on an array of topics from vaccine safety to the organizational structure of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The institute has nearly 1,600 members who carry out studies, conduct workshops, hold public forums and publish influential reports. Harvey Fineberg, former provost of Harvard University, has served at the helm of the IOM as the institute's president since 2002. During his tenure at the institute, Fineberg has overseen a raft of studies on topics ranging from AIDS prevention to new medical technologies. He spoke to Prashant Nair about the role of the IOM in biomedical research in the US.