Authorizing Legislation: Section 301 and title IV of the Public Health Service Act, as Amended.
|
FY 2008 Appropriation |
FY 2009 Omnibus |
FY 2009 Recovery Act |
FY 2010 President’s Budget |
FY 2010 +/- 2009 Omnibus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BA |
$1,155,560,000 |
$1,226,263,000 |
$1,610,088,000 |
$1,252,044,000 |
$25,781,000 |
FTE |
105 |
117 |
|
119 |
+2 |
This document provides justification for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2010 activities of the National Center for Research Resources, including HIV/AIDS activities. Details of the FY 2010 HIV/AIDS activities are in the "Office of AIDS Research (OAR)" Section of the Overview. Details on the Common Fund are located in the Overview, Volume One. Program funds are allocated as follows: Competitive Grants/Cooperative Agreements; Contracts; Direct Federal/Intramural and Other.
Director’s Overview
Transcending geographic boundaries and research disciplines, NCRR supports essential resources to help researchers funded by NIH transform basic discoveries into improved human health. NCRR’s four integrated and complementary areas of focus (clinical research, biomedical technology, comparative medicine, and research infrastructure) accelerate research along the entire continuum of biomedical science. Through the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortium and other collaborations, NCRR supports all aspects of translational and clinical research, connecting researchers, patients, and communities across the nation.
Building Connections in Clinical and Translational Science
The CTSA program is forming a national consortium of academic health centers that work together to transform the discipline of clinical and translational research. Now in its third year, the momentum behind the CTSA consortium continues to build as new connections are emerging within, across and beyond the consortium. Fourteen new CTSAs joined the consortium in FY 2008, bringing the total to 38. The addition of these 14 brought in five new states, more pediatric expertise, and greater informatics capabilities. East, West, and Midwest regional consortia have formed, creating opportunities for nearby institutions to focus on shared goals with greater efficiency. CTSA institutions are engaging their business schools to help create more effective and transparent ways to achieve results. At the national level, the consortium is finalizing a strategic and implementation plan to ensure its national priorities are met. During the past year, the consortium also made substantial progress to improve clinical research management, develop core competencies in clinical and translational science, and accelerate the dissemination of research findings into clinical practice.
Fostering Translational Research
The potential to accelerate research discoveries between animal models and humans is a benefit of the expanding interactions among the NCRR-funded animal and clinical resources. Currently, researchers with expertise in animal models (including mouse, rat, and nonhuman primate models) are working with CTSA investigators on pilot projects to help advance research on cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other diseases. In FY 2009, NCRR plans to expand its support of translational research projects that promote collaborations between animal and biological material resources and CTSAs or Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMIs). NCRR’s Biomedical Technology Research Centers (BTRCs) are cutting edge interdisciplinary centers that create transformative technological and computational infrastructure for biomedical research. The CTSAs are leveraging the wealth of BTRC expertise to enable a wide range of translational research, from cell biology to clinical imaging. Through NCRR’s translational research efforts in the areas of biomedical technology and comparative medicine, the Center is working to ensure its research investments are benefiting the fight against diseases such as cancer and autism.
Leveraging Partnerships to Benefit Biomedical Science
The University of Washington CTSA is partnering with institutions in states supported by NCRR’s Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program to create greater opportunities for underserved populations. Similarly, connections between the CTSAs and NCRR’s Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program are growing, inspiring the next generation of researchers. As an example, the University of Pittsburgh CTSA and SEPA investigators hosted an outreach event for middle school students, which featured a mobile science laboratory from another SEPA grantee.
Improving Research Informatics and Connectivity
The CTSA program emphasizes the critical role informatics tools and approaches play in clinical and translational science. These tools and approaches are being made available locally through the CTSA program to support researchers while ensuring privacy and confidentiality protections for study participants. FY 2008 pilot projects are facilitating the extension of tools for the collection and sharing of data by investigators conducting clinical studies across CTSA sites. Additionally, NCRR awarded a contract in FY 2008 to create an electronic directory of animal model resources to provide researchers one-stop access to information related to animal models of human disease. NCRR also plans to support the development of an animal model informatics resource to provide researchers with one-stop access to information related to animal models of human diseases. As an initial step, NCRR awarded a contract in FY 2008 to create an electronic directory of animal model resources.
Expanding Research Capacity
To continue to expand capabilities for RCMIs, NCRR launched the RCMI Infrastructure for Clinical and Translational Research (RCTR) award in FY 2009. Funding may be used for out-patient clinical resources, biostatistical support, core laboratories, and patient-oriented research infrastructure. The RCTR is a reorganization of previous RCMI programmatic activities and will enhance research capacity, improve collaboration between basic, translational, and clinical researchers, and facilitate multidisciplinary training and career development.
Identifying NCRR’s Future Priorities
NCRR is continually communicating with its stakeholders to ensure that its efforts address the needs of the research community. Currently under consideration is a review of the state eligibility criteria for the IDeA program. NCRR has formed a committee to examine this and to recommend what changes, if any, are needed to ensure that the program’s intent to broaden geographic distribution of NIH funding continues to be met. To provide NCRR with a solid foundation to accomplish its mission, a strategic plan for 2009-2013 was released in September 2008. It reflects input from representatives across research institutions, professional organizations, advocacy groups, and NIH programs. NCRR will continue to explore creative ways to partner with other federal agencies and organizations, both public and private, to implement the plan.
Overall Budget Policy: The largest portion of NCRR’s budget supports Research Center grants that provide support for long-term, multi-disciplinary biomedical research programs, and the development of essential research resources for more than 30,000 scientists. The NCRR gives priority to those resources and projects that are critical to the research enterprise and without which the national biomedical community could not achieve its full potential or harness innovation to advance human health. The Center evaluates investigator-initiated grant applications for all large programs, conducts a scientific review of NCRR grant applications, and presents the results to the NCRR Advisory Council for review. NCRR will continue to support new investigators and to maintain an adequate number of competing Research Project Grants. Research Management and Support receives a modest increase to help offset the cost of pay and other increases.
Division for Clinical Research Resources: This division funds biomedical research institutions to establish and maintain specialized clinical research facilities and to train the clinical researchers of tomorrow. It is leading NIH in efforts to help institutions create a new integrated discipline of clinical and translational sciences through the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program. Additionally, the division provides clinical-grade biomaterials that enable clinical and patient-oriented research, supports the development of clinical research informatics, and improves the nation’s understanding of medical research through Science Education Partnership Awards.
In FY 2008, the division's primary focus was the expansion of the CTSA consortium. One of the many CTSA activities sponsored throughout the year included a workshop on "Enhancing Clinical Investigations by Improved Clinical Research Management" held in June 2008. The goal of the workshop was to develop a system of metrics to apply to the processing of research protocols and it focused on institutional review board processes, contract processes, and quality improvement. The workshop included representatives from CTSAs, 15 NIH ICs, and the pharmaceutical industry.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget is $499.080 million, an increase of $11.737 million, or 2.4 percent from the FY 2009 Estimate. The FY 2010 request includes an additional $20.000 million for new CTSAs, which encompass linked career development and research training awards, as well as General Clinical Research Centers. To accommodate the additional investment in the CTSA program, funds realized from General Clinical Research Centers transitioning to CTSAs will be redirected to the CTSAs, and funding for General Clinical Research Resources activities will be decreased.
Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs)/General Clinical Research Centers (GCRCs): Working together as a national consortium, the CTSA institutions have begun to design clinical research informatics tools, forge new partnerships with health care organizations, expand outreach to minority and medically underserved communities, develop better designs for clinical trials, and train the next generation of clinical and translational researchers, including physicians, researchers, and nurses. Additionally, each CTSA institution is creating an academic home for clinical and translational research.
In FY 2008, NIH funded 14 additional CTSAs, expanding the consortium to include 38 academic health centers (AHCs). Through CTSA solicitations, AHCs, including those with GCRCs, will have the opportunity to build on their existing resources and transform into this integrated program over a period of years. In FY 2008, support for consortium-wide activities and informatics pilot projects was provided. Additionally, the CTSA Consortium is finalizing a strategic planning and implementation process to accomplish national priorities.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the combined CTSA and GCRC programs is $466.993 million, which includes $441.748 million provided by NCRR and $25.245 million contributed by the NIH Common Fund. FY 2010 funding support provided by NCRR reflects a $20.000 million or 4.7 percent increase over the FY 2009 Estimate. The FY 2010 contribution from the NIH Common Fund reflects a decrease of $27.979 million or 52.6 percent from the FY 2009 Estimate (More information on the NIH Common Fund is provided in Volume One – Overview).
Additional CTSA awards are anticipated each fiscal year until FY 2012, when the program will be fully implemented and will support about 60 CTSAs. This budget supports existing and new CTSAs, and includes funding that has been transitioned into the CTSAs from the GCRCs, as well as funding that has been incorporated into the CTSAs for existing training and career development grants. In addition, the FY 2010 budget will support the existing GCRCs that have not transitioned into CTSAs, the re-competition of the K30 Clinical Research Curriculum Awards for those institutions that do not have K30 activities supported through a CTSA, as well as a support center that assists with coordination across the CTSA Consortium.
Portrait of a Program: Clinical and Translational Science Awards - CTSA and RCMI Partnerships Enhancing Clinical and Translational Research Training
FY 2009 Level: $421.748 million
FY 2010 Level: $441.748 million
Change: +$ 20.000 million
Partnerships between Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) institutions and Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) are improving research training, increasing mentoring opportunities, enhancing diversity, and expanding research on health disparities. These partnerships (Emory University with Morehouse School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University with Meharry Medical College, and Weill Cornell Medical College with Hunter College) are possible due in large part to the research capacity developed in the minority institutions through the RCMI program.
All three CTSA-RCMI partnerships feature strong research training components. For example, the Atlanta CTSA is a partnership among a number of organizations including Emory University, the Morehouse School of Medicine, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta. Each partner contributes unique expertise in areas such as informatics, health disparities, and community engagement. The Atlanta CTSA partnership provides expanded clinical and translational research training and mentoring opportunities to junior faculty and doctorate students through two programs targeted at critical junctures along the training pipeline. The Mentored Clinical and Translational Research Scholars program provides junior faculty from a wide variety of disciplines at all three schools with didactic and mentored research training in clinical investigation. It includes salary support for the junior faculty member, a technical budget for research costs and tuition, and partial salary support for the trainee’s lead mentor. As part of the Research Education, Training, and Career Development program, M.D. and Ph.D. students are being mentored by successful clinical and translational researchers who are supported by federal funding. As part of the partnership, students have access to mentors at any of the participating institutions, greatly increasing the variety of research projects available and expanding opportunities to initiate and augment research careers.
CTSA and RCMI partnerships are playing a major role in training the next generation of clinical and translational researchers in multidisciplinary settings. These partnerships leverage resources provided by the CTSA and RCMI program activities such as the Clinical Research Education and Career Development Awards in minority institutions to ensure that a diverse group of investigators will be available in the clinical and translational research workforce. Similarly, the CTSA and RCMI partnerships are broadening of the pool of mentors and expanding the areas of investigation to span across the entire research continuum from basic science to community-based research.
Clinical Research Resources-General: NCRR funds specialized support programs and initiatives that provide clinical researchers with the facilities and resources they need to conduct patient-oriented research and clinical trials. Researchers using these facilities and resources are studying diseases such as diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, cystic fibrosis, and multiple sclerosis.
In FY 2008, NCRR convened a workshop to help accelerate the dissemination and translation of clinical research into practice. It focused specifically on the interface between academic research and community health care provider organizations and included representatives from the National Association of Community Health Centers, the Indian Health Service, the Veterans Health Administration, Health Resources and Services Administration, and Kaiser Permanente. This workshop expanded upon themes from two NCRR-sponsored workshops on fostering collaborative community-based clinical and translational research held in FY 2007. Discussion topics included strategies to improve dissemination, translation, and implementation of evidence-based knowledge into clinical practice in community settings. Workshop recommendations will guide ongoing and future NCRR initiatives.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget is $39.008 million, a decrease of $8.578 million or 18.0 percent from the FY 2009 Estimate. To maximize its investments in clinical research, NCRR has linked a number of the programs described above with the CTSA program, such as training and research career awards that will be integrated under the umbrella of CTSAs. To sustain the increased investment in the CTSA program, NCRR ended support for two programs: the Islet Cell Centers and the High Throughput Genotyping Center. Other NIH I/Cs will assume responsibility for providing islets for clinical transplant and laboratory research, and comparable genotyping resources are available through other NIH-funded programs. In addition, NCRR will not award any new research career training awards outside of the CTSA program.
Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) Program: The goals of the SEPA program are to 1) increase the pipeline of future scientists and clinicians in grades K-12, especially from minority, underserved, and rural populations and 2) to engage and educate the general public on the health-related advances made possible by NIH-funded research. By creating relationships among educators, museum curators, and medical researchers, SEPA encourages the development of hands-on, inquiry-based curricula that inform participants about such timely issues as obesity, stem cells, and infectious diseases. In addition, SEPA provides professional development for teachers and mentoring opportunities for students. In FY 2008, NCRR funded 16 new SEPAs, 13 for K-12 students and 3 science center/museum projects, to engage students and the public in health sciences. This round of new awards brings the SEPA portfolio to 65 active grants. The program continues its emphasis on rural and underserved populations with 18 out of the 23 Institutional Development Award (IDeA) states and Puerto Rico receiving current SEPA funding.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for this program is $18.324 million, an increase of $315 thousand and 1.7 percent from the FY 2009 Estimate. In FY 2010, NCRR will continue to develop our outreach efforts to expand the benefits of the SEPA program to other NCRR programs such as IDeA, RCMI, and CTSAs. These efforts include informing high schools about opportunities to participate in SEPA, and Encouraging science museums, which reach a wide audience, to educate the public in the benefits of NIH-supported research.
Division of Biomedical Technology: This division supports the development of a broad spectrum of technologies, techniques, and methods through 50 Biomedical Technology Research Centers (BTRCs) at academic and other research institutions nationwide. The BTRCs develop versatile new technologies and methods that help researchers who are studying virtually every human disease, each creating innovative technologies in one of five broad areas: informatics and computation, optics and spectroscopy, imaging, structural biology, and systems biology. They are complemented by programs providing research project grants to individual investigators and small businesses, often focusing on high risk, high reward technological innovation. In FY 2008, the BTRCs, which are located in 20 states, were used by nearly 7,500 scientists from across the United States and beyond, representing over $1.5 billion of NIH funding from 20 Institutes and Centers.
In January 2009, the NCRR initiated a five-year project to make software tools and data available to a wider range of biomedical and clinical researchers through the NCRR-funded Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN). BIRN tools are currently focused on neuroscience and are available to researchers as they pursue the causes and new treatments for conditions such as autism. Researchers in other medical fields, such as cancer, also benefit from this infrastructure.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget is $217.135 million, an increase of $3.116 million or 1.5 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. This budget includes the Shared Instrumentation (SIG) and High-End Instrumentation Grant (HEI) grant programs detailed below. Program activities will focus on expanding and ensuring the development of technologies to support translational research, developing affordable and flexible technologies that can be applied to translational research, and developing additional areas of expertise and knowledge, especially at the crossroads of mathematics, physics, and medicine. This Division also manages the Center’s $36.184 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which seek to increase federally-supported small business research and development participation and private-sector commercialization of technology.
Shared Instrumentation (SIG) and High-End Instrumentation (HEI) Grant Programs: The goal of these programs is to provide new generation technologies to NIH-supported investigators for a broad array of basic, translational, and clinical research. The Shared Instrumentation program funds equipment in the $100,000 to $500,000 range and the High-End Instrumentation program funds instrumentation in the $750,000 to $2 million range. To increase cost effectiveness of the programs, instruments are placed in core facilities where they benefit a large community of NIH researchers. Research tools funded through these programs enable researchers to make breakthroughs in biomedical research.
NCRR Instrumentation Program (dollars in thousands)
| FY 2008 Actual | FY 2009 Estimate | FY 2010 PB | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
# Awards |
$ Amount |
# Awards |
$ Amount |
# Awards |
$ Amount |
Shared Instrumentation |
81 |
$ 30,224 |
112 |
$ 42,073 |
113 |
$42,768 |
High-End Instrumentation |
20 |
$ 33,309 |
11 |
$ 21,469 |
11 |
$ 21,460 |
Total - Instrumentation Program |
101 |
$63,533 |
123 |
$ 63,533 |
124 |
$ 64,228 |
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the Shared Instrumentation/High-End Instrumentation grant programs is $64.228 million, an increase of $695 thousand or 1.1 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. These one-year awards help NIH-supported investigators acquire expensive, commercially available equipment, which is typically too costly to obtain through a research project grant. To optimize the use of Federal funds, instrumentation purchased with a Shared Instrumentation or High-End Instrumentation award must be shared by at least three NIH-supported scientists. In FY 2009, a total of $300 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds were received to support Shared Instrumentation.
Division of Comparative Medicine: This division provides scientists with essential resources—including specialized laboratory animals, research facilities, training, and other tools—that enable health-related discoveries. Animal models are a critical part of the biomedical research continuum to bridge the gap between basic science and human medicine. Discoveries in one species enhance the understanding of other species. Because many diseases need to be studied in living organisms, researchers have developed animal models, which mimic human conditions. In fact, virtually every major medical advance of the last century resulted from research involving animal models.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the Division of Comparative Medicine is $197.258 million, an increase of $3.886 million or 2.0 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate.
National Primate Research Centers (NPRCs): The major goal of the NPRC program is to facilitate the use of nonhuman primates (NHPs) as models of human health and disease for basic, translational, and clinical biomedical research. It provides animals, facilities, and expertise in all aspects of NHP biology and husbandry through funding to eight institutions. It is neither cost effective nor feasible to reproduce these specialized facilities and expertise at every research institution, so the NPRCs are a valuable resource to the research community. Major areas of research benefiting from the resources of the NPRCs include HIV/AIDS, avian flu, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, asthma, and endometriosis. During FY 2008, the NPRCs provided support to more than 2,000 investigators. To facilitate these studies, the NPRCs house 28,000 NHPs, 62 percent of which are rhesus monkeys, the most widely used NHP for HIV research and translational studies. The NCRR funded NPRC initiatives to enhance consortium-based activities among the NPRCs in the areas of informatics, colony management and genetics.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the NPRC program is $83.895 million, an increase of $2.660 million or 3.3 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. The highest funding priority will be to maintain the breadth of activities supported by the program. The NCRR and NPRCs will continue to work together to determine specific ways in which consortium-based activities can be enhanced to make more efficient use of existing funding. NPRCs will continue working with the CTSA consortium to help clinical researchers increase their knowledge of and access to animal models, such as nonhuman primates.
Comparative Medicine – General: NCRR funds research to create, develop, characterize, preserve, and study a broad array of high-quality animal models and biological materials, such as cell cultures. This funding also supports research to safeguard the health and welfare of laboratory animals and provides career development opportunities in specialized areas of translational science. By utilizing non-mammalian models, such as fish, worms, and fruit flies, investigators are able to advance the understanding of gene function, protein interactions, and disease processes related to humans. The mouse model and other genetically-altered animals provide opportunities for preclinical testing and the development of therapies for genetic disorders.
In FY 2008, NCRR awarded a contract to create an electronic directory that will provide researchers with access to integrated data about animal models resources. This is the first step in creating a resource that will provide researchers one-stop access to all the information generated from the use of animal models of human disease. To advance translational science, NCRR awarded supplements to support scientific collaborations between animal models resources and CTSAs. A new solicitation was issued to continue and expand the scope of this effort in FY 2009.
Additionally, based on a 2007 NCRR-sponsored workshop, two new solicitations will fund research leading to the development of innovative methods to establish reliable and standardized animal germplasm cryopreservation protocols in support of animal models for translational research.
Portrait of a Program: Comparative Medicine - Non Human Primate Resources Critical to Development of AIDS Vaccines
FY 2009 Level: $12.874 million
FY 2010 Level: $12.874 million
Change: $ 0
Each year, more than 56,000 individuals are infected with HIV in the United States according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates (JAMA. 2008;300(5):520-529). To help reduce these numbers, NIH remains committed to developing an HIV vaccine. However, a recent failure of a candidate vaccine is prompting NIH to regroup and reexamine its approach. In the future, non human primate resources will continue to play a crucial role in better understanding the development of HIV/AIDS and testing new concepts for vaccine development. NCRR’s strategic and long-standing support of non human primate resources has ensured that animals, expertise, and resources are readily available for researchers.
For example, NCRR greatly expanded breeding colonies for specific pathogen free rhesus monkeys, beginning in 2000. These monkeys are free of certain key viruses that can compromise the results and interpretation of AIDS-related studies and tests of vaccines. Specific pathogen free animals are available for studies aimed at better understanding the mechanisms by which AIDS viruses destroy the immune system. Such knowledge, not always obtainable in human studies, should help in the design of the next generation of AIDS vaccines. Monkeys are also required to understand such key aspects of AIDS biology as how the brain is affected and how the virus is passed from mother to child. NCRR also supports resources that help researchers study an animal’s response to infection, some of which are influenced by genetic factors. For example, NCRR grantees have developed tests that can be used to examine many key features of AIDS infection and vaccine responses in monkeys, prior to application of vaccines to humans.
NCRR and its Non Human Primate Research Centers continue to work closely with NIAID and the NIH Office of AIDS Research to ensure that adequate numbers of animals and resources are available to meet the needs for the development of new vaccines. NCRR planning will take into account any new recommendations from the Non Human Primate AIDS Vaccine Workshop hosted by NIAID in November 2008.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the Comparative Medicine – General Program is $113.363 million, an increase of $1,226 million or 1.1 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. The Division will continue funding for the NIH Knockout Mouse Project (KOMP) Repository and the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (NRSA), where NCRR plans to support approximately 112 full-time training positions.
Increasing the number of qualified research veterinarians and ensuring that veterinarians are recognized partners on translational research teams is a FY 2010 priority. NCRR will sponsor career development programs that attract and train graduate veterinarians in such specialties as primate clinical medicine, laboratory animal medicine, and rodent pathology. To facilitate research supporting translation of laboratory discoveries into clinical applications, NCRR is developing a new electronic directory of existing animal models resources to provide access to centralized information derived from pre-clinical disease models. This resource will link relevant model features to appropriate human conditions to facilitate the discovery of new interactions, connections and relationships between models and diseases. Finally, continued enhancement of activities related to cryopreservation of animal germplasm and related technologies remains a major goal of the Division’s efforts.
Division of Research Infrastructure: Developing and invigorating the nation’s research capacity and infrastructure at all stages of research—from basic discoveries in the laboratory to advanced treatments for patients, particularly in medically underserved communities—is the goal of this division. Its programs provide research opportunities for junior investigators, enhance the caliber of scientific faculty, and increase the number of competitive investigators in minority and other developing institutions. Additionally, the division continues to monitor grants previously made to modernize and construct research facilities that support basic and/or clinical investigations.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the Division of Research Infrastructure is $305.981 million, an increase of $6.480 million and 2.1 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate.
Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI): The goal of the program is to develop and enhance the research infrastructure of minority institutions to expand their capacity for conducting basic, translational, and clinical research. It provides grants to institutions that award doctoral degrees in health-related fields and have student populations that are 50 percent or greater African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaska Native, or Pacific Islander. It currently funds grants to 18 minority institutions in 10 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and provides a wide array of research resources to enhance institutional infrastructure, ranging from state-of-the-art instrumentation to outpatient clinical research facilities. Research areas supported by the RCMI program include health disparities, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
In FY 2009, NCRR launched a new initiative, the RCMI Infrastructure for Clinical and Translational Research (RCTR) awards, which enables RCMI-eligible institutions to develop clinical and translational research capacity and enhance research training and career development efforts.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the RCMI program is $57.857 million, an increase of $1.150 million or 2.0 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. The program’s highest funding priority will be to sustain the range of activities supported by the program, including improving network connectivity, providing Web-based access to resources, and multi-site clinical data management support through the RCMI Translational Research Network (RTRN). The RTRN promotes interdisciplinary interactions and collaborations with the biomedical research community and community health providers to facilitate translational research focused on improving health outcomes and eliminating health disparities.
Institutional Development Award (IDeA): This program fosters health-related research and increases the competitiveness of investigators at institutions in 23 states and Puerto Rico with historically low aggregate success rates for grant awards from the NIH. The two major initiatives of the IDeA program are IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) and Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE). INBREs establish a multi-disciplinary research network that strengthens the lead and partner institutions’ biomedical research expertise and infrastructure while providing research support to faculty and students including those from community and tribal colleges. COBREs support thematic multidisciplinary centers that strengthen institutional research capacity by expanding and developing biomedical faculty capability and enhancing research infrastructure that encompasses the full spectrum of the basic and clinical sciences. In FY 2008, the three-day Biennial IDeA Program Symposium was held, bringing together over 700 participants to showcase research accomplishments, exchange ideas, foster collaborations, encourage educational opportunities, and demonstrate the Program’s progress in developing biomedical resources and research capacity in IDeA states. Additionally, in FY 2008, NCRR funded five new IDeA COBREs focused on studies of obesity and cardiovascular disease, reproductive biology, nanomedicine, diabetes, and schizophrenia.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the IDeA program is $228.862 million, an increase of $4.819 million or 2.2 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. This budget will support existing, new, and re-competing INBRE and COBRE awards. NCRR will continue its commitment to COBREs to ensure growth through the promotion of collaborative and interactive efforts among researches with complementary backgrounds, skills, and expertise. Eighteen INBRE awards, which have 5-year budget periods, re-competed in FY 2009. The new INBRE grants will further develop the caliber of scientific faculty at research institutions and undergraduate schools and attract more promising students to these organizations.
Portrait of a Program: Institutional Development Award Program - Improving Research Connectivity in the Northeast
FY 2009 Level: $224.043 million
FY 2010 Level: $228.862 million
Change: + $ 4.819 million
NCRR remains committed to enhancing network connectivity so that research institutions in underserved states can fully participate in and contribute to the nation’s biomedical research enterprise, which increasingly relies on real-time access to high-end instruments, burgeoning data sets, and supercomputers running advanced analytical software. Toward that end, NCRR's Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program supports IDeANet, an Internet-based effort to enable investigators in IDeA states to collaborate with each other and with research teams across the nation.
IDeANet takes a regional approach to strengthen and interconnect existing statewide IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE). It builds upon the success of NCRR’s Lariat project, which established ultra-high-speed links among universities in six IDeA states (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Wyoming) and three major Internet hubs in the western United States. Modeled after Lariat, the Northeast Network Initiative launched in FY 2007 is a coordinated regional effort to improve access to national research networks and facilitate collaboration between INBREs in five northeastern IDeA states: Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
As an important first step, Maine’s INBRE helped secure funding from their state Legislature in 2007 for the University of Maine System, The Jackson Laboratory, and Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory to establish a high-speed fiber optic path through Bangor to Portland. Additionally, the University of Maine System has established public-private partnerships with two regional telephone companies to lease existing fiber along the route to Portland and from Portland to Salem, New Hampshire. To leverage the state’s investment, NCRR awarded administrative supplements in September, 2007 to facilitate the development of the Northeast Cyberinfrastructure Consortium, which will enable all seven Maine INBRE partner institutions to connect to this new backbone. With the University of Maine System as an anchor tenant, the regional telephone company plans to build a new high-speed fiber route across New Hampshire, which will expand the market and help drive down bandwidth costs for academic customers across the region. A high-speed backbone from Portland to Boston is due to be operational by mid-2009. These network upgrades will greatly facilitate multi-institution research collaborations across the northeast and will allow real time data transfer among researchers in the region. These enhancements also will make it feasible for researchers across the country and the world to remotely access NIH-supported resources and high end instrumentation at the Northeast Network Initiative institutions.
Research Infrastructure – General: Funding for the Division of Research Infrastructure (DRI) programs develops research capacity and infrastructure at all stages of research—from basic discovery in the laboratory to improved health outcomes in local communities. DRI programs enhance the competitiveness of investigators in minority and other developing institutions, and provide funding to expand, remodel, and renovate or alter existing research facilities.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget for the program is $19.262 million, an increase of $511 thousand or 2.7 percent over the FY 2009 Estimate. NCRR will continue to provide support to institutions for alterations and renovations to improve laboratory animal facilities and to purchase equipment for animal resources, diagnostic laboratories, transgenic animal resources, and similar activities.
Research Management and Support (RMS): The NCRR RMS activities provide administrative, budgetary, logistical, and scientific support in the review, award, and monitoring of research grants, training awards, and research and development contracts.
Budget Policy: The FY 2010 President’s Budget provides $32.589 million for RMS, an increase of $561 thousand or 1.8 percent fover the FY 2009 Estimate. This increase reflects NIH policy for RMS in FY 2010 and will be used to help offset increases for payroll costs, centrally furnished services, and supplies and materials. Requested resources will be used to support the above activities and to promote sound stewardship of our resources by effectively leveraging technology.
Common Fund/Roadmap: The NCRR is the lead Institute/Center for the following NIH Common Fund initiatives supported through the NIH Common Fund: National Technology Centers and Metabolomics Development, and Clinical and Translational Science Awards. Both of these activities will continue in FY 2010.