I would urge each and everyone of you to contact Dr. Collins at the NIH and respectfully encourage him to include more stem cell research in his plans.
Dr. Collins Reveals His Plans
In an August 17 address to NIH, its new director, Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., emphasized five themes he will devote his energies to:
* Apply high-throughput technologies to understand fundamental biology and uncover the causes of disease, allowing scientists to tackle problems in a comprehensive way.
* Support translational research to take advantage of new discoveries that can lead to new diagnostics and treatments. This includes getting academic investigators more involved and creating more public-private partnerships.
* Put scientists to work to benefit health care reform, including a focus on comparative effectiveness research, behavioral science, and health disparities.
* Expand global health efforts beyond AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and build research capacity in resource-poor environments.
* Invigorate and empower the research community by ensuring stable funding, strengthening training programs, encouraging new investigators, promoting diversity in the workforce, and supporting the NIH Common Fund.
Dr. Collins also shared his concerns. Foremost is a reprise of the funding shortfall that occurred after the doubling of the NIH budget ended in 2003, a dire possibility for 2011 when ARRA funds end.
Feast or famine is bad for science, he said, and highlighted the need to make the case that NIH-supported research is good for the economy and beneficial to the public. In that vein, scientists should become major players in CER, and the scientific community should figure out how to help contain health care costs.
Dr. Collins Reveals His Plans
In an August 17 address to NIH, its new director, Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., emphasized five themes he will devote his energies to:
* Apply high-throughput technologies to understand fundamental biology and uncover the causes of disease, allowing scientists to tackle problems in a comprehensive way.
* Support translational research to take advantage of new discoveries that can lead to new diagnostics and treatments. This includes getting academic investigators more involved and creating more public-private partnerships.
* Put scientists to work to benefit health care reform, including a focus on comparative effectiveness research, behavioral science, and health disparities.
* Expand global health efforts beyond AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and build research capacity in resource-poor environments.
* Invigorate and empower the research community by ensuring stable funding, strengthening training programs, encouraging new investigators, promoting diversity in the workforce, and supporting the NIH Common Fund.
Dr. Collins also shared his concerns. Foremost is a reprise of the funding shortfall that occurred after the doubling of the NIH budget ended in 2003, a dire possibility for 2011 when ARRA funds end.
Feast or famine is bad for science, he said, and highlighted the need to make the case that NIH-supported research is good for the economy and beneficial to the public. In that vein, scientists should become major players in CER, and the scientific community should figure out how to help contain health care costs.