NIH Advisory Committee Looks
at New Research, Young Investigators
December 20, 2002 - The Advisory Committee to the
Director (ACD) of the NIH met on Dec. 5, and engaged in a
discursive, probing discussion of the future directions of
the agency's research, with particular attention to career
prospects for young investigators and support for multidisciplinary
research. This was ACD's second meeting with Dr. Elias Zerhouni,
who became NIH Director in May 2002.
Dr. Zerhouni presented his process for developing a "road
map" of NIH research programs that will guide discussions
and coordination between NIH institute and center directors,
and help the agency in its communications with the Department
of Health and Human Services, the Office of Management and
Budget, and Congressional overseers. He described methods
for examining research programs by the potential benefit of
their outcomes, the risk and uncertainty of achieving such
outcomes, and the level of resources required to achieve them.
Many of NIH's greatest achievements, the committee noted,
originate from high risk, resource intensive research programs.
Often, research programs that were once highly speculative
- such as in genomics - become reliable areas of progress.
The committee also discussed possible mechanisms to support
and expedite the career development of post-doctoral trainees
and new investigators and to support multi-disciplinary investigator-led
research. The Director will designate working groups of the
committee to develop recommendations on these topics.
Information:
Stephen Heinig, Senior Research Fellow
AAMC Biomedical Health Sciences Research
sheinig@aamc.org
(202) 828-0488
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