National Institutes Of Health 's Mission Research Articles

Model organism databases are in jeopardy.

Model organism databases are in jeopardy.

NIH's scientific approach to inclusive excellence.

The representation of women and scientists from underrepresented groups (URGs), including Black/African Americans, Hispanic/Latinx, Pacific Islanders, and American Indians, diminishes as individuals advance in their careers from training to senior leadership positions. Correcting this imbalance requires integrated strategies to achieve inclusive excellence within the scientific workforce reflected by creating and sustaining environments, in which diverse talent thrives. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Scientific Workforce Diversity office has led the charge to develop and implement evidence-informed interventions toward achieving this goal that undergirds NIH's mission to improve the nation's health. Past and current efforts aiming to enhance workforce diversity but targeted to individuals are necessary but insufficient for lasting change. Thus, NIH-funded institutions should develop and prioritize integrated, systems-targeted efforts as foundational components of a well-supported, productive workforce. At the heart of these endeavors is institutional accountability that ties progress toward inclusive excellence to institutional values and reward systems.

NIH funding and the pursuit of edge science

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) plays a critical role in funding scientific endeavors in biomedicine. Funding innovative science is an essential element of the NIH's mission, but many have questioned the NIH's ability to fulfill this aim. Based on an analysis of a comprehensive corpus of published biomedical research articles, we measure whether the NIH succeeds in funding work with novel ideas, which we term edge science. We find that edge science is more often NIH funded than less novel science, but with a delay. Papers that build on very recent ideas are NIH funded less often than are papers that build on ideas that have had a chance to mature for at least 7 y. We have three further findings. First, the tendency to fund edge science is mostly limited to basic science. Papers that build on novel clinical ideas are not more often NIH funded than are papers that build on well-established clinical knowledge. Second, novel papers tend to be NIH funded more often because there are more NIH-funded papers in innovative areas of investigation, rather than because the NIH funds innovative papers within research areas. Third, the NIH's tendency to have funded papers that build on the most recent advances has declined over time. In this regard, NIH funding has become more conservative despite initiatives to increase funding for innovative projects. Given our focus on published papers, the results reflect both the funding preferences of the NIH and the composition of the applications it receives.

Clinical Translation of the National Institutes of Health's Investments in Nanodrug Products and Devices.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting biomedical research. The NIH's mission is to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. In support of this mission, NIH has invested about $4.4 billion since 2001 in nanotechnology (NT) research. This investment is leading to fundamental changes in understanding biological processes in health and disease, as well as enabling novel diagnostics and interventions for treating disease. NIH scientists are developing molecular agents and methods for earlier and more accurate diagnosis and therapies aimed directly and selectively at diseased cells, and are exploring root causes of common and rare diseases at the nanoscale. Work is also underway to move these research tools and devices into clinical practice. This particular investigative review examines the NIH NT portfolio linked to clinical trials from FY2008 to FY2015 to assess the progress of clinical translation. Among the subset of trials identified, 70% target drug or combination drug-device products used in treating cancer, AIDS, and other various diseases. The review also provides insight into trends observed from studying the clinical research portfolio.

Monitoring the Implementation of the National Institutes of Health Strategic Plan for Women's Health and Sex/Gender Differences Research: Strategies and Successes

Building upon the legacy of the previous two National Institutes of Health (NIH) women's health research agenda–setting reports,1,2 the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) released the third NIH scientific agenda for women's health and sex differences research in September 2010, entitled Moving Into The Future With New Dimensions and Strategies: A Vision for 2020 For Women's Health Research.3 Within NIH, ORWH is part of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, residing in the Office of the Director; ORWH is charged with coordinating women's health research in collaboration with the 27 Institutes and Centers (ICs) that make up NIH, each of which has a distinct mission and identity. Of note, the 2010 research agenda, or strategic plan, is the women's health research agenda for NIH overall, cutting across the missions of all the ICs. As such, it serves as a map to guide new efforts as well as continue collaborations within NIH in order to fulfill the NIH mission to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Through the framework of the strategic plan, in partnership with the NIH ICs, the Office of the Director, and the Advisory Committees (Figure 1), ORWH leads efforts to meet this mission as it relates to women's health.

Putting Health Science into Health Education

In his News & Analysis story “Educators, lawmakers question proposed reorganization” (14 June, p. [1274][1]), J. Mervis discusses our efforts to prevent an end to funding for the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program. The tiny SEPA program and its smaller siblings at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institute on Drug Abuse do much more than, as Mervis says, “shar[e] the latest health science results with the public.” In fact, they are the only federal programs that put health science into health education at the K–12 level. In most schools, health education is not taught as part of the science curriculum, and even though standard health education emphasizes behavior modification, the traditional approach has historically failed to affect health literacy: More than 50% of U.S. adults remain functionally health illiterate ([ 1 ][2]). ![Figure][3] CREDIT: JULNICHOLS/ISTOCKPHOTO One of our SEPA programs (led by K.F.M. and B.J.) illustrates the difference between science-focused and traditional behavior-focused health education. Standard high school health classes about nutrition and obesity focus on behavior modification such as “eat your vegetables,” “eat fewer carbs,” and “eat low fat.” These messages are constantly changing and are often contradictory. As a result, many people (not only students) are confused about what to believe and end up ignoring guidelines. In contrast, our Metabolic Disease curriculum asks the question, “What information do I need to make a judgment about which nutritional advice I should follow?” We teach 10th- to 12th-grade students how to distinguish correlative from causative information, identify what criteria a study should meet to produce reliable information, and determine whether a comparison between two different studies is valid. Our goal is to give students tools they can use to evaluate the science underlying health information, as opposed to merely giving them the information itself. Another of our SEPA programs (led by J.M.W.) teaches high school students about genetic and environmental factors that influence complex diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and cancers, subjects that are never addressed in traditional health education. A nuanced understanding of these topics will become increasingly crucial in the coming decades as the fruits of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) investment in genomic sequencing are finally harvested. It is therefore troubling that NIH elected to eliminate funding for these programs entirely rather than subject them to cuts, even though neither the continuing resolution nor the sequester pressured them to do so. Why? In the News story, NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak says that NIH plans to provide only technical expertise after the reorganization, implying that NIH's higher administration believes that NIH has no responsibility to fund K–12 health education that is firmly rooted in science. This seems disingenuous given the NIH mission to “apply knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce the burdens of illness and disability” ([ 2 ][4]). Preparing STEM workers for the workforce and educating the U.S. citizenry in health literacy are different tasks that were clearly erroneously conflated by the STEM consolidation committee. In contrast, health science is legitimately intertwined with health science literacy in the 21st century. The agency responsible for health science should also be responsible for health science education. 1. [↵][5] Institute of Medicine, Committee on Health Literacy ([www.iom.edu/Activities/PublicHealth/RtblHealthLiteracy.aspx][6]). 2. [↵][7] NIH, Mission ([www.nih.gov/about/mission.htm][8]). [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.340.6138.1274 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: pending:yes [4]: #ref-2 [5]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1 in text [6]: http://www.iom.edu/Activities/PublicHealth/RtblHealthLiteracy.aspx [7]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2 in text [8]: http://www.nih.gov/about/mission.htm

News from NIH: the patient-centered medical home

News from NIH: the patient-centered medical home

Commentary: Making Clinical Research a Robust Career Path

This commentary relates to three articles in this issue of Academic Medicine, which address the vision of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for clinical and translational research. Those articles encompass the first successful Clinical and Translational Science Award applicants' stated aims for their programs, the success of a Harvard training program, and the case for exposing medical students to research experiences. The positive recommendations each makes are timely and give the author an opportunity to draw attention to related NIH education and outreach programs. Meeting the NIH's mission "to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability" will need a coordinated approach to ensure that health care workers are aware of the importance of research-and that clinical researchers see a secure, research-related career structure in academic health centers.

New directions in dentistry--the role of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) is one of 27 Institutes and Centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States (for additional information, visit http://www.nih.gov/icd/). The NIH mission is to uncover new knowledge that will lead to better health for all people. This mission is accomplished through conducting research in its own laboratories; supporting the research of non-Federal scientists in universities, medical schools, dental schools, hospitals, and research institutions throughout the U.S. and abroad; helping in the training of research investigators; and fostering communication of medical information. With the simultaneous announcement of the draft sequence of the human genome in February 2001 from the public and private sectors,1,2 we have entered the postgenomic era of biomedical science. Regulatory networks that underlay the spatial and temporal expression of genes during development will be dissected;3 their recapitulation will afford new opportunities for tissue repair and replacement, particularly when merged with emerging principles of bioengineering.4 Whole genome analysis will become increasingly important to define host response to infectious disease.5 During this new era, analysis of the human proteome will offer new targets for pharmaceuticals.6 Therapeutics will become more individualized as genotypic variation7 is defined and fuels the emerging field of pharmacogenomics.8 Genetic diagnosis will be used increasingly to identify individuals most in need of interventions; for example, there is at least one genetic screening being used as a means to target surgical prevention of malignancy.9 Diagnostic procedures will increasingly be diverted from the hospital and laboratory to the community and the home. Pervasive computing will permit realtime monitoring of any number of physiological parameters and analytes. Where facile, “non-invasive” sampling is desired, saliva is the medium of choice.10 Many analytes can be measured in saliva and oral fluids including hormones, drugs of abuse, and antibodies (as a means to detect exposure to infectious agents such as human immunodeficiency virus). Whole-mouth fluids are also a facile source of host-derived DNA samples and have been used for both biomarker profiling and forensic identification. For example, mitochondrial DNA mutations found to be associated with primary tumors of the human bladder, head and neck, or lung can be detected in saliva.11 A recent report suggests that head and neck squamous cell carcinoma may be detected using microsatellite analysis of DNA derived from exfoliated oral mucosal cells sampled from saliva.12 This will catalyze the shift in a health care system concerned largely with disease diagnosis to health surveillance. With the advance of technology to monitor health in real time, perform genetic testing for susceptibility to disease, and determine efficacy of potential therapeutics comes the increased obligation to ensure that patients’ rights are maintained.13

NIH Intramural Program Endangered

The program of intramural research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could be seriously damaged by 1982 unless the sprawling Bethesda, Md, facility can curtail its expenditures. Dr Robert Goldberger, NIH Deputy Director for Science, estimates that with President Carter's 1981 budget increase of less than 4% for the Bethesda-based institutes (which will result in an approximate 10% drop in overall buying power), such obligated costs as salaries will commit a dangerously high proportion of the intramural budget and lead to severe financial pressures on the NIH mission. It appears that extramural funding for 1981 will stress support for investigator-initiated research grants, allowing approximately an 11% increase in this area, with the boost for intramural research lagging far behind. What consequences will the contraction of intramural NIH's scientific mission have on US medical practice and medical education? Consider the large number of well-trained researchers and clinicians who served their

NIH Intramural Program Endangered

The program of intramural research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could be seriously damaged by 1982 unless the sprawling Bethesda, Md, facility can curtail its expenditures. Dr Robert Goldberger, NIH Deputy Director for Science, estimates that with President Carter's 1981 budget increase of less than 4% for the Bethesda-based institutes (which will result in an approximate 10% drop in overall buying power), such obligated costs as salaries will commit a dangerously high proportion of the intramural budget and lead to severe financial pressures on the NIH mission. It appears that extramural funding for 1981 will stress support for investigator-initiated research grants, allowing approximately an 11% increase in this area, with the boost for intramural research lagging far behind. What consequences will the contraction of intramural NIH's scientific mission have on US medical practice and medical education? Consider the large number of well-trained researchers and clinicians who served their