In President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last month, he argued that government support for research and development to fund innovation is a necessary and critical investment that must be made, even in the face of a rising national debt. A coalition of biomedical researchers support his vision on science. The 2012 budget President Obama sent to Congress earlier this month seeks an increase in funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and in basic science at other agencies, while making cuts and freezes in many other areas of government.
The past decade has seen a stagnation in U.S. biomedical research funding. Since 2003, there has been a trend of flat or below-inflation funding for the NIH (see graph, NIH appropriations in 2010 dollars [1]). In February 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the NIH received $10.4 billion in new funding, which temporarily revitalized the biomedical research community. Unfortunately, a continuing resolution has held NIH funding in 2011 at the $31 billion it had in 2010.
Here’s a closer look at research priorities outlined by the NIH for 2012.
Research priorities in 2012
According to a report by the NIH on the President’s proposed 2012 NIH budget, the NIH will use the requested $32.0 billion to support ’innovative research across the spectrum from basic to clinical, with a focus on one major area of extraordinary opportunity, and three other themes that are exceptionally ripe for investment and critical to improving the health of the American people’ [4].
The National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences
In January, NIH Director Francis Collins announced plans to move ahead with the creation a new translational medicine center called the National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS). NCATS will catalyze innovation at crucial junctures in the pipeline for diagnostics and therapeutics discovery and development, spur new public-private partnerships and facilitate the regulatory review process through recent initiatives including the NIH-FDA Leadership Council and a research program in Regulatory Science. NCATS will align and bring together a number of trans-NIH programs, such as the Cures Acceleration Network (CAN), which plays a leading role in the effort to accelerate the development of ’high need cures’ through the reduction of barriers between research discovery and clinical trials; the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program; and the Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program.
Technologies to Accelerate Discovery
To help investigators illuminate the complex causes of disease, in FY 2012 the NIH plans to support further developments and application of advanced technologies such as DNA sequencing, microarray technology, nanotechnology, new imaging modalities and computational biology.
Enhancing the Evidence Base for Health Care Decisions
In FY 2012, the NIH will support rigorous programs for assessing and ensuring the effectiveness of newly developed treatments within populations and for individuals. Personalized medicine research will enhance the evidence base for decision-making in clinical practice.
New Investigators, New Ideas
The future of biomedical research in the U.S. depends upon young scientists. In FY 2012, the NIH will emphasize two programs: the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, which supports exceptionally creative new investigators with potentially high-impact projects; and the Early Independence Program, which enables the most talented young scientists to move directly from a doctoral degree to an independent research career.
As part of the President’s initiative to emphasize support for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs, the budget proposes a 4% stipend increase for predoctoral and postdoctoral research trainees supported by the NIH’s Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards program. The $794 million training investment will allow the NIH to continue to attract high-quality research trainees to address the Nation’s future biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs.
Other key priorities
In FY2012, the NIH will pursue other key priorities, including:
- Cancer: Continuing to pursue discoveries in basic cancer science and the development of new cancer treatments and methods for prevention and early detection of cancer.
- Alzheimer’s disease: the NIH is partnering with the private sector to find new methods for early diagnosis and to support early drug discovery and preclinical drug development.
- Autism spectrum disorders: the NIH will continue to research environmental factors, early detection and novel treatments.
- HIV/AIDS: the NIH will devote nearly $3.2 billion for research on effective vaccines and other preventive measures for HIV/AIDS.
Act Now to Protect Research!
Irrespective of all the research priorities outlined above, science funding in 2012 is under attack. The U.S. House of Representatives is debating unprecedented multibillion dollar cuts to the budgets of the NIH, National Science Foundation (NSF), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The promise by Congressional Republicans to rein in federal spending for the 2012 fiscal year completely ignores the importance of investment in biomedical research and the jobs it creates, not to mention the fiscal and lifesaving benefits.
The House of Representatives passed H.R. 1 on February 19th [5]. The bill now moves on to the Senate and could be voted on this week. H.R. 1 will cut NIH funding by $1.6 billion (5.2%) below the current 2010 level and reduce the budget for medical research to $29.4 billion– back to 2008 levels, not accounting for inflation.
The proposed reductions by the House of Representatives are a serious threat to our nation’s health and economic competitiveness. Contact your members of Congress today and tell them funding for health research is vital to curing diseases, generating jobs now and in the future, and securing the economic well-being of America.
References
- NIH Funding FY2000-2012; historical NIH appropriations determined from the NIH Almanac ’ Appropriations. Accessed 2011 Feb 26
- Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposes Pains, Gains for Science. Wired Science. 2011 Feb 15.
- Obama resists research cuts. Nature News. 2011 Feb 15.
- President’s Proposed 2012 NIH Budget. NIH. 2011 Feb 14.
- H.R. 1: Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011. GovTrack.us. Accessed 2011 Feb 26.
By Highlight HEALTH
Highlight HEALTH is a new media news organization that promotes advances in biomedical research and new ideas in health and medicine.More posts by Author
It is a mistake for scientists to argue this issue by staying in the weeds discussing the efficiency of allocated research money. The big picture in terms of the economy and our existing national priorities is the most important issue to focus on. Our major national spending by far is on social security, medicare and medicaid, and defense. Research is pin money. These 3 big ticket items (SS, M and M, Defense) can be tweaked with miminal pain to release very large sums of money. Also, there are speciifc opportunities such as coroporate tax loopholes and taxpayer subsidies that involve very large sums of taxpayers' money that could be a focus for debate. We need to stregthen the education level and skills of our kids and redouble our national research and development to be globally competitive. Cutting national research budgets will simply stress many existing research groups and young careers cause a faltering of research programs that can help us find solutions to national problems and stimulate our economy.
The comments by Lisa posted today misrepresent American medical research and the current levels of NIH funding. The past three decades of research have led to amazing advances, but there are still many serious diseases that we cannot adequately treat, prevent or cure. It is only through new research that we will make progress. Research is expensive, and research scientists do work hard, but characterizing the work environment of a research lab as a "slave labor camp" reflects a very poor understanding of the real work of research scientists or the desire to solve serious problems that motivates our scientists. The exhange of ideas is constant. Scientific collaborations are more plentiful now than in the past and are often required to pursue complex projects. I agree that science is expensive and that many times investigations do not go as planned. After all, if we already knew the results of the experiments we pursue, there would be no point in doing the experiment. Research scientists who complete for NIH funding typically have 5-30 years of intensive training after college. To obtain grant funding you need to write a detailed proposal explaining your ideas, how you plan to pursue the work, and why the work is likely to be valuable. The grant is then reviewed by a committee of expert scientists who judge merit of the proposals and compare the ideas to the other grants competing for funding. With the current levels of NIH funding only about 10% of grants submitted get funded. While is is reasonable to assume that many of the ideas of the best trained scientists in our nation are not worth pursuing, it is not reasonable to assume that 90% of our scientists best ideas are not worth funding. As a physician who cares for sick children and a research scientist in search of new cures, new diagnostic strategies, and new treatments, I see first hand the value of medical research. I also see how much more we need to learn to be able to relieve human suffering. This requires basic research, translational research and eventually large scale clinical trials. The current NIH budget is so low that many valuable ideas cannot be pursued, prolonging the suffering of those who are ill. Cutting the NIH budget is not "required". The U.S. budget for 2010 was $3.55 trillion. The NIH budget was $ 31 billion, or about 1% of the total U.S. budget. Is this too much to pay for the work of scientists committed to finding new ways to make us healthier? I think we do not commit nearly enough of our federal budget to finding new ways to improve our lives.
NIH budget cuts are required as a lot of money is squandered in the name of research. Researchers are not the best money managers and the money is spent inappropriately. I think NIH can cut even more. Most of the money is not spent for genuine research and America as a leader in this field is a past. Sure they still win the Nobels etc but what is the country of origin of these researchers. For America to succeed, the most important criteria is that Americans have to be interested in research which they are absolutely not. A large number who accept these NIH grants waste it away in furthering their careers, not necessarily science. They hire cheap labor from foreign countries and work them like dogs, most not even getting a day off in years. There are no exchange of ideas for furthering research. It is like a slave labor camp. In this environment research cannot flourish. In addition, the medical doctors with hardly any research experience receive enormous amounts of money for translational research for which they have little or no experience pushing people with years and years of research experience even down in the dumps.