Thurssday, March 13, 2008

Lack of NIH funding increases is straining younger researchers
By Kelly Winget

Funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has not significantly increased since 2003, and researchers want the NIH to understand that without sufficient research support, many promising discoveries might never materialize for patients.

Kristin Newby, MD, MHS

DCRI cardiologist and researcher Kristin Newby, MD, MHS, has joined a coalition of leaders from major academic medical centers to voice concerns that years of virtually flat funding from the NIH is jeopardizing the careers of junior biomedical researchers, as well as potentially limiting new discoveries that could have significant impact upon patient care.

NIH funding has changed drastically since 1998. Between 1998 and 2003, annual NIH funding grants jumped from $13.3 billion to $27.3 billion. From 2003 to today, that figure has only increased to $29 billion annually, which the coalition said in a report has not even kept up with inflation.

This has had the biggest impact on junior researchers who do not already have established labs with the necessary staff and equipment to conduct their research. The reason for this is due in part to the most common and most important NIH award for biomedical researchers -- the RO1, or Research Project, grant.

An R01 grant is typically a grant of hundreds of thousands of dollars awarded over several years. Without a grant of this magnitude, many younger scientists struggle to find enough funding to establish a lab and often drop out of academia or search for jobs in private industry as a result.

The average age when researchers would be awarded their first RO1 grant used to be 39. Today, the average age is 43. Newby is 46 and is still hoping to be awarded her first RO1.

“The process of getting NIH funding can be a career in itself.  It takes time, and you have to be persistent,” Newby said.

For years, Newby has studied a protein called troponin that breaks down and enters the bloodstream when the heart muscle is damaged. One of her research goals is to develop better screening tests based on this and other proteins and genomic profiles that would help physicians better identify which people have the highest risk of suffering a heart attack and how best to treat them to prevent it. Although she has received funding from the government and private industry, her research also depends on the significant boost that an RO1 can provide.

Newby was funded by the NIH through 2003 but she now relies on funding from the pharmaceutical industry to continue her research. She is one of many biomedical researchers around the country whose potentially groundbreaking research could be in jeopardy without changes to NIH funding, the coalition noted in their report and in a press conference they held in Washington, D.C.