December 14, 2001

NIH Director's Advisory Committee Reviews Matters Old and New

Ruth Kirschstein, M.D., acting NIH Director, convened the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) on Dec. 6. This was the first meeting of the ACD following both the Sept. 11 attacks and President Bush's Aug. 9 decision on research with human embryonic stem cells, and both issues were discussed at length. The ACD also addressed two items of continuing concern to academic institutions' research infrastructure: facilities construction and information technology.

The committee unanimously approved the report of its working group on construction of extramural research facilities, led by ACD-member William Brody, M.D., Ph.D., president of the Johns Hopkins University. The working group calls for significant increases in direct funding for construction to address a widely recognized obsolescence of existing facilities. It also calls for adoption of more realistic depreciation schedules for state-of-the-art facilities and for making other policy reforms affecting financing for new construction or renovation.

ACD Member Larry Smarr, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego and director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, presented the findings of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). According to the committee, the U.S. health care sector is noticeably deficient in wide-scale adoption of new information technologies, primarily due to economic constraints forestalling new investment. Research within the health care system, including clinical and health outcomes research, is particularly affected by the lack of computational resources. The PITAC calls for NIH to work closely with the National Science Foundation and the Departments of Defense and Energy, to design and build a "scalable national computing and information infrastructure to support the biomedical research community."

Dr. Kirschstein reported on NIH's role in the nation's defense against biological terrorism. Anthony Fauci, M.D., director, and John LaMontagne, Ph.D., deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are among key federal personnel leading the federal response. Members of the NIH research community, such as D. A. Henderson, M.D., M.P.H., at Johns Hopkins, have assumed prominent advisory roles to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Public Health Service.

The NIH must also address the needs of its own security, both as a custodian of potentially hazardous materials and as a prominent American institution in its own right. Public access for vehicular traffic has been narrowed to a single entrance of the 300-acre campus in Bethesda, Maryland and security check points have been established for all buildings. Dr. Kirschstein reports that NIH is planning to construct a fence around the campus perimeter.

DHHS also has expressed concern for the security of grantee institutions and researchers. Two NIH-sponsored projects were housed within the New York World Trade Center and 27 grants, mostly small business awards, supported projects in the immediate vicinity. Wendy Baldwin, Ph.D., director of NIH's Office of Extramural Research, drew lessons from NIH's assistance to grantee institutions in Houston recovering from Tropical Storm Allison. There is a great need for extensive contingency planning on the part of institutions, particularly concerning secure back-up systems for data and information.

Concerning research with human embryonic stem cells, Dr. Baldwin reported that six research project proposals have been received in the most recent grant cycle and more are expected for the next cycle. She described the NIH's registry of stem cell lines that meet the President's criteria for eligibility in consideration of federal funding and urged investigators to contact the custodians of these cell lines prior to writing or submitting research proposals for the use of these cells.

In NIH personnel matters, searches continue for several new institute directors, including the institutes for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Drug Abuse, Mental Health, and Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Following the meeting, Dr. Kirschstein joined DHHS Secretary Thompson in announcing the nomination of Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., as director of the National Cancer Institute.

David Korn, M.D., AAMC senior vice president for Biomedical and Health Sciences Research, has been invited to join the ACD and participated as guest of the committee in the meeting on Dec. 6.

Information: Stephen Heinig, AAMC Division for Biomedical and Health Sciences Research, 202-828-0488.