Update on NIBIB Appropriations

Abstract

Academy of Radiology Research President Philip O. Alderson, MD, testified on May 2, 2002, before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education in support of increased fiscal year 2003 appropriations for the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). The Congress is currently considering legislation to appropriate funds for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Dr Alderson’s appearance before the House Subcommittee was part of the Academy’s effort to ensure that NIBIB has sufficient resources to achieve its mission. In his remarks before the Subcommittee, Dr Alderson expressed his agreement with new NIH Director Elias Zerhouni’s earlier statement before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that the NIH needs “to encourage cross-cutting initiatives” (1). The NIBIB, Dr Alderson observed, “represents precisely such a cross-cutting initiative.” For example, Dr Alderson said “basic, cross-cutting research in molecular imaging supported by NIBIB could make broadly applicable new diagnostic tools available more quickly than would be possible if disease-specific research in the other institutes were the only way to accomplish these goals at the NIH, and new techniques in NIBIB could be applied to studies in all the other institutes.” Dr Alderson emphasized the important scientific opportunities that could be exploited by the NIBIB, including initiatives to develop novel imaging systems and new image-guided surgical techniques. Such opportunities could be lost, he said, if additional funds are not provided in the fiscal year 2003 appropriation. Dr Alderson told the Subcommittee that