The National Institutes of Health is planning to ramp up a new program aimed at channeling $500 million per year into "translational research," developing practical therapies from new discoveries. Starting with grants of about $41 million next year and building to $500 million by 2012, the program is aimed at drawing together scientists from different areas to more rapidly advance new fields like proteomics--research into proteins and their production. One watchdog group warned that with federal spending constraints, the money for this new program may be redirected from other projects.
"We are truly at a crossroads in medicine," NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni told reporters. "The scientific advances of the past few years... dictate that we act now to encourage fundamental changes in how we do clinical research, and how we train the new generations of clinician scientists for the medical challenges of this century."
- read this article from The Washington Post for more