January 26, 2001
NCRR Council Approves High-End Shared Instrumentation Program
The advisory council to NIH's National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) Jan. 18 approved "in concept" several new programs that the NCRR will propose in future budget requests. The council enthusiastically supported creating a program to assist extramural researchers in acquiring "high-end" shared instrumentation. The program would award $1 million or more for the purchase of commercially available equipment, such as new generation nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technology. The new program will not supplant NCRR's current shared instrumentation grant (SIG) program, which provides from $100,000 to $500,000 toward the purchase of major laboratory equipment. For several years the AAMC has advocated the need for NIH to support the acquisition and efficient use of state-of-the-art scientific instruments. The program could begin as early as FY 2002 although only a few awards are expected initially.
Planning for the new initiative begins in an auspicious year for NCRR, which received an appropriation of $814 million in FY 2001, a 22 percent increase. A large share of this increase is allocated toward the EPSCoR-like Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) program, which builds research infrastructure within states that receive relatively little competitive grant support from NIH.
Congress expanded the program from $40 million in FY 2000 to $100 million this year. The core of NCRR's other programs received an increase on par with the overall increase for NIH. NIH is expected to release final budget estimates shortly.
NCRR Director Judith Vaitukaitis, M.D., informed the council about recently enacted legislation that included the Clinical Research Enhancement Act and the Twenty-first Century Research Laboratories Act (providing funds for facility construction and renovation). NIH is closely following other legislation, signed in December, authorizing the creation of a sanctuary for laboratory chimpanzees. NIH, which through NCRR has been providing for research chimpanzees under a plan developed by the National Academy of Sciences, will respond to the new requirement.
Regarding legislation to create a new NIH Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Engineering [see Washington Highlights, Jan. 5, 2001], Acting NIH Director Ruth Kirschstein, M.D., told the council that the NIH would act deliberately and carefully to implement the directive. Like the chimpanzee sanctuary legislation, the legislation creating the new institute provides no new funding. However, the NIH wishes to avoid extracting all existing bioimaging and bioengineering programs from other institutes and regrouping them within the new institute. Instead, the new institute will focus on initiating new basic research and development within the field. Dr. Kirschstein has appointed a committee of institute directors, chaired by National Institute of Mental Health Director Steven Hyman, M.D., to develop recommendations for establishing the new institute.
Maria Freire, Ph.D., director of NIH's Office of Technology Transfer, described efforts to implement the agency's principles and guidelines on the sharing of research tools, finalized in December 1999. Based upon comments invited by a notice in the Federal Register last September, the research community appears overall to endorse the principles and guidelines; however, there continue to be questions on ways to apply guidelines to highly complex circumstances, especially those encountered in interaction with industry and academia. In the case of NCRR-funded centers developing research resources, Dr. Vaitukaitis suggested altering program announcements to delineate requirements for adherence to the guidelines. The council approved creating a subcommittee to make recommendations to promote sharing of research tools within NCRR programs.
In a final item, the council approved a concept clearance for the establishment of centers of excellence in veterinary research to promote career development of young veterinarian investigators in multidisciplinary research.
Information: Steve Heinig, AAMC Division of Biomedical and Health Sciences Research, 202-828-0488.
