President Joe Biden on Monday nominated Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to lead NIH, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and North Carolina.

• District of Columbia: President Joe Biden on Monday nominated Monica Bertagnolli, director of the NCI, to lead NIH. If confirmed, Bertagnolli would be the second woman to lead the agency. Bertagnolli is also a professor at Harvard Medical School and a former surgical oncologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. In a statement, President Biden said Bertagnolli is "a world-class physician-scientist whose vision and leadership will ensure NIH continues to be an engine of innovation to improve the health of the American people." (Bettelhiem, Axios, 5/15; Frieden, MedPage Today, 5/15)
• Maryland: NIH on Monday announced it is enrolling patients for an early-stage clinical trial to test a universal flu vaccine utilizing mRNA technology. Researchers hope the vaccine will protect against a variety of flu strains and provide people with long-term immunity, so they wouldn't need to get a shot every year. "A universal flu vaccine could serve as an important line of defense against the spread of a future flu pandemic," said Hugh Auchincloss, acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The trial will enroll up to 50 healthy people between the ages of 18 and 49. (Kimball, CNBC/NBC News, 5/15)
• North Carolina: North Carolina's legislature on Tuesday voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper's (D) veto of Senate Bill 20, which makes the majority of abortions illegal after 12 weeks, with some exceptions for rape, incest, or to preserve the life and health of the mother. The bill also states that in medical abortions, or abortions involving an "abortion-inducing drug" like mifepristone, physicians shall first verify the fetus's gestational age is less than 10 weeks. The bill, which needed a three-fifths majority in the House and Senate to override the veto, passed the House 72-48 and the Senate 30-20. (Graff, Axios, 5/16)