NHLBI Acting Deputy Director Carl Roth, Ph.D., LL.M. (right), offered comments to a presentation by Sejal Patel, Ph.D. (left), a senior research historian in the NIH Office of History, at the 4th annual Stetten Symposium on June 6, 2012. One of four presentations at the symposium, Patel's talk, "The Benevolent Tyranny of Biostatistics: Biomedical Research, Accountability, and the Political Economy of the NIH," focused on the emergence of biostatistics at the NIH in the 1950s-1960s. In his follow-up remarks, Roth emphasized the importance of retaining organizational memory so that people can know whether seemingly new ideas have already been tried and rejected. Patel and audience members—including NHLBI Acting Director Susan Shurin, M.D., and NHLBI Division of Cardiovascular Sciences epidemiologist Paul Sorlie, Ph.D.—then engaged in a lively discussion about how increased monitoring and accountability have posed challenges for NIH and NHLBI research projects in the past and today, such as the Framingham Heart Study, while also underscoring the NIH's critical role in a broad range of basic science, drug development, and public health efforts.