Recent news
January 2011
New NIH therapeutics center to launch by October 2011
January 26, 2011 -- Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), recently sent a letter to Congress outlining plans to open a new center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by October 2011. The proposed National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) would establish a focused, integrated, and systematic approach to link basic research with therapeutic development and clinical care. The new center will likely focus on neglected diseases of the developing world, as well as rare diseases.
Under the proposed plan to Congress, more than $700 million in research projects already under way at various NIH institutes and centers would be brought together at the new center. NIH officials hope that Congress will allocate an initial $1 billion for the center, and that the prospect of developing new medical therapeutics will eventually prompt Congress into increasing NCATS budget beyond $1 billion. Because an existing law caps the number of NIH institutes and centers at the current 27, NIH’s National Center for Research Resources will be dismantled to pave the way for NCATS. “There are some people that would say this is not the time to do something bold and ambitious because the budget is so tight,” NIH Director Francis Collins said, adding, “But we would be irresponsible not to take advantage of scientific opportunity, even if it means tightening in other places.” See the links below for more information.
