The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is struggling this year to spend a windfall of more than $ 150 million pediatric research. And things could get a little hairy, judging by the reaction of an advisory group outside Friday for initial public release of the agency of his plans.
"Given the diffuse nature of what you have described, and its complexity, I don 't want to use the word" nuts ", but it is a challenge," Lila Gierasch of University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said the main NIH deputy director Lawrence Tabak after his presentation at a meeting of the Council recommendations in Bethesda, Maryland. "Thank you for changing nuts" to "difficult," said Tabak, tongue in cheek. "We just try to do what makes the most sense, and increase the potential value of the resources available to us."
The situation is certainly unusual for the agency's $ 30 billion, where a succession of flat budgets meant plunging the success rate of grant proposals. But NIH is only following the orders of Congress for two separate research initiatives to help children.
Last spring, lawmakers passed the law on research First Gabriella Miller children, allowing NIH to spend $ 126 million over 10 years for pediatric research. In December, they gave NIH his first $ 12.6 million. Taken together, authorization and ownership represented a kind of belt and suspenders approach to ensure that NIH follows the interest of legislators to have the agency do more to understand and find cures for any childhood cancer and juvenile arthritis teenagers suicide and obesity.
at the same time, the NIH has pulled the plug on the study of its National controversial for children (NCS), which was supposed to monitor various environmental and psychosocial factors affecting a cohort of 100,000 children from birth to 'so at 21, Congress directed NIH to find other uses for $ 165 million that lawmakers had already allocated in the final 2015 project spending bill for the massive study. Some money will go to the shutter existing activities and related study Vanguard, leaving about $ 140 million for new initiatives.
NIH officials have spent the last six weeks to react to this whirlwind of legislative activity and plot their next moves. Although the two pots of money are distinct, they hoped to use each of capitalizing on the eruption of new technologies that allow researchers to collect and analyze large amounts of information. On Friday, they presented their preliminary plans to the Board.
Kids First
The money for the Kids First initiative should help to enrich a number of studies of children already underway, said Elizabeth Wilder, head common Fund, which coordinates trans-NIH research programs. "The goal is to use information across cohorts to meet the compelling issues in pediatric research," she said to the council. "We want to develop a valuable resource for the pediatric community."
some board members were turned off, however, for such a generic description of the research plan. "I'm not as excited as I would be," said one. "I'm trying to imagine what I would do with that database." Another member of the Board characterized the NIH plan as "we have the ability of Big Data, so we'll apply it to children. "
Wilder admitted that the scope of the search to cover has not been determined." We do not have a Kids First definition of when childhood ends, "she said in response to a question whether studies of addiction and mental illness would be part of the initiative. (Miller, namesake of the law, died of cancer at the age of 10, and promoters the law systematically refer to it as support for research on pediatric cancer.) another board member asked whether studies on the results of the adults in these disorders are also fair game.
But the initial uncertainty has not bothered Marlene Belfort, a professor at the University of Albany, State University of New York. "I think there is more enthusiasm for this project I heard there 25 years ago, when we began to discuss the draft of the human genome, "she noted. "And look how much we have learned from that."
The pediatric research initiative as genome project, expected to be a multiyear effort. And the idea has won broad bipartisan support because it was presented as revenue neutral. Its funding comes to end federal aid for political conventions for the presidential candidate of each party, now funded by a $ 3 check-off on tax returns
Some $ 38 million of the electoral fund was set aside last spring at the initiative of the NIH, and representative Tom Cole (R-OK) has introduced a bill to transfer another $ 88 million in NIH completely eliminating the withholding tax mechanism, which also funds campaigns presidential. However, Congress funds federal agencies on an annual basis, so that the money for the first child should be appropriate each year.
study of manna children
However, the money for the study of the canceled child is a unique bargain. It must be spent, or at least initiated, before the year 2015 ends on 30 September. Congress also tied two ropes to money, Tabak told the Council: NIH must "remain faithful to the original intent of the study, to discuss issues at the intersection of pediatric health and environment, and we must also do a better job of engaging underrepresented communities. "
Moving quickly, a group of institute directors and senior NIH officials have concocted three options for spending the money NCS. As Tabak describes, the first would focus on development and employment new tools, such as biosensors to monitor the impact of environmental factors on pediatric diseases. the second would be to study the "seeds" of future diseases by factors affecting children before and after the birth of surveillance. the third would expand the existing studies to include more environmental factors. the goal, Tabak said, "is to develop tools and approaches that, if successful, could be applied to many studies of existing cohorts."
Tabak recognized the wave, which prompted the comment Gierasch on how much work needs to NIH in a very short time. But Tabak said NIH faces a challenge more great in 09 when Congress appropriated $ 10 billion to the body under the government stimulus plan in the wake of the financial crisis. "Do we have it so perfect? Maybe not," he said. "But I think it worked pretty well in the end."
Several Board members suggested specific areas that NIH should take into account in any future solicitation NCS spend money, leading Tabak to warn that "we need to strike a balance between trying to be all things to all people and provide something useful. "He said the advantage of emphasizing the development of new tools is that" you can adapt "to all that the NIH studies decides to finance the road.
Tabak did not offer a timetable for decisions on how to distribute the money NCS. Wilder said she hoped the NIH leadership would decide "early spring" how the first year of Kids First funds would be spent.
0 Komentar