NIH Director Collins has $500M Discretionary Funds

[justinreilly]

This is an interesting article on Francis Collins from a few months after he was appointed in 2009. Maybe we can convince him to send us some of his discretionary funds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06nih.html?ref=francisscollins

He has promised to be far more open than either [of his two predecessors]. He has held town-hall-style meetings with staff members, reporters and outsiders. And neither of his predecessors was given to meeting reporters at the nearby greasy spoon.

Im a scientist, Im one of them, Dr. Collins said. I have a lab, just like Varmus did. Im a pretty informal guy. I ride a Harley.

The issues of culture and identity are important because the director of the institutes has little official power. Crucial decisions about how to spend the agencys $30 billion annual budget are made either by committees of scientists or by the 27 directors of the individual institutes and centers.

In one significant recent change, Dr. Collins will have discretion over about $500 million a year to finance research he deems important...

Because the laboratories of pharmaceutical companies are increasingly barren, Dr. Collins said he wanted to encourage academic researchers to consider either commercializing their ideas or pursuing drug development in universities when profits are unlikely particularly for rare or neglected diseases...

While acknowledging the importance of basic sciences like biochemistry and genetics, he said he wanted scientists to consider clinical or therapeutic implications in their work. Were not the National Institutes of Basic Sciences, he said. Were the National Institutes of Health"...

And in an appearance last week on The Colbert Report, the host, Stephen Colbert, asked whether Dr. Collins would take off his glasses and shake out his hair to make science sexy and cool.

And Dr. Collins did just that.

Apparently Dr. Mangan has communicated that there will be no increase in funding for ME in the near future.

I find this totally unacceptable. The NIH budget is declining 1% ($320M), but we need an increase of huge multiples, from $3M per year now to $300M - $1B per year. The budget declining 1% is no excuse.

Can anyone explain further the info below about funding decisions?

The issues of culture and identity are important because the director of the institutes has little official power. Crucial decisions about how to spend the agencys $30 billion annual budget are made either by committees of scientists or by the 27 directors of the individual institutes and centers.