Dr. Collins Reveals His Plans for the NIH

[barbara]

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.

[Jeannine]

I don't see much in his plans that is in the interest of Americans with chronic illneses. I don't think we have much trouble with malaria or tuberculosis in the US and I don't see how diversity in the workforce wiil find cures either. If this is the NATIONAL Institute of Health why do his plans sound GLOBAL?

Unfortunately, he sounds like a typical government bureaucrat.

[barbara]

Good points Jeannine. Here's another interesting bit of correspondence I ran across sent in 2007! Soon, it will be 2010. It is easy to see how estimates of 10-20+ years are going to be a reality for treatments to become available.

Stem cells: Current challenges and future promise
James F. Battey *
National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
email: James F. Battey (batteyj@nidcd.nih.gov)

*Correspondence to James F. Battey, NIH Bldg. 31, Rm 3C02, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892-2320
This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.


Abstract
Stem cells have two remarkable properties. They can either renew themselves or they can differentiate into one or more adult cell types. Stem cells derived from a human embryo appear to have an unlimited capacity to self-renew in cell culture, and they are also able to differentiate into hundreds of adult cell types. Human embryonic stem cell lines offer a platform technology that has the potential to elucidate the molecular mechanisms that determine adult cell fate, generate cellular models for discovery of new drugs, and create populations of differentiated cells for novel transplantation therapies. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has identified some of the rate-limiting steps toward realizing this potential, and has forged funding initiatives to accelerate research progress. Given the remarkable potential, NIH support for research using stem cells is an important priority for the foreseeable future. Developmental Dynamics 236:3193-3198, 2007. Published 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Accepted: 19 April 2007