NIH facing new pressures; proposed roadmap in doubt

摘要

The House and Senate committees charged with overseeing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) held a joint hearing in October that highlighted both the management challenges facing the research agency and the political challenges facing members of Congress as they seek to address those issues. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee scheduled the hearing two days after NIH Director Elias Zerhouni unveiled a new roadmap for biomedical research designed to maximize opportunities and bridge gaps unlikely to be addressed under NIH's current decentralized structure. The plan proposed a series of new initiatives to encourage cross-disciplinary research involving multiple institutes, some of which the agency has already begun to implement. At the hearing, Zerhouni made it clear that some elements of the plan call for strengthening the office of the director by providing greater authority over the agency's budget and a more centralized planning mechanism.