Opportunities and challenges in translational science.

The mission of translational science is to bring predictivity and efficiency to the development and dissemination of interventions that improve human health. Ten years ago this year, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences was founded to embody, conduct, and support this new discipline. The Center's first decade has brought substantial progress across a broad range of translational areas, from diagnostic and drug development to clinical trials to implementation science to education. The origins of the translational science and advances to this point are reviewed here and allow the establishment of an ambitious future research agenda for the field.

Education, Experience, and Action: An Interview with Dr. Trevor K. Archer.

We asked Dr. Archer about his experiences in academia, struggles he has faced, and thoughts on addressing racial bias. We hope that this series sparks a larger discussion of issues faced by underrepresented scientists and ways the scientific community can foster diversity and better support underrepresented scientists. The opinions expressed here are those of Dr. Archer and not the NIH/NIEHS or the US government.

NIH funding trends to US medical schools from 2009 to 2018.

Total NIH funding dollars have increased from 2009-2018. We questioned whether this growth has occurred proportionately around the country and throughout allopathic medical schools. Therefore, we compared the trend in NIH grant funding from 2009 to 2018 for United States allopathic medical schools among historically top-funded schools, private and public schools, and by region of the country. Changes in both unadjusted and real funding dollars over time revealed a significant difference. Region was the only significant factor for mean percent change in funding from 2009-2018, with the Western region showing a 33.79% increase in purchasing power. The Northeastern region showed a -6.64% decrease in purchasing power while the Central and Southern regions reported changes of 2.46% and -6.08%, respectively. The mean percent increases were more proportional and nonsignificant in the public vs. private institutions comparison, at -3.41% and 4.75%, respectively. Likewise, the top-funded institutions vs. other institutions comparisons demonstrated modest, nonsignificant differences. However, although the relative changes might be proportional, the absolute increases evidence a pattern of growing cumulative advantage that favor the highest-funded institutions and private institutions. The potential consequences of this disproportionate increase include health science education, biomedical research, and patient access disparities in large parts of the country. The NIH and the scientific community should explore potential solutions in its funding models.

Key milestones during 40 years of behavioral medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has played a major role in promoting behavioral medicine research over the past 40 years through funding, review, and priority-setting activities and programs including scientific conferences, meetings, workgroups, intramural research, and training opportunities. In this review of NIH activities in support of behavioral medicine over the past four decades, we highlight key events, programs, projects, and milestones that demonstrate the many ways in which the NIH has supported behavioral and social sciences research and advanced the public health while contributing to the evolution of behavioral medicine as a scientific field.

Between Bench and Bedside: Building Clinical Consensus at the NIH, 1977-2013.

After World War II, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) emerged as a major patron of biomedical research. In the succeeding decades, NIH administrators sought to determine how best to disseminate the findings of the research it supported and manage their relationship with clinicians in the national community. This task of bridging research and practice fell to the Office of Medical Applications of Research (OMAR), which administered the NIH Consensus Development Program (CDP) between 1978 and 2012. This article argues that the CDP represented an unusual attempt to depoliticize biomedical research and medical practice at a particularly controversial time in American medicine. Throughout the program's existence, administrators sought ways to bring new knowledge to the medical community without creating the appearance of regulating clinical practice. For an agency with a mandate to promote the production of new biomedical knowledge, the question remained open as to how far this responsibility extended from the bench to the bedside. In striking this balance, the leadership sought to refine their understanding of the role and mission of the NIH. The history of the CDP has much to tell us about postwar biomedical research, health politics, and the institutional development of the NIH.

Lost in Translation: Linking Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice at the National Institutes of Health, 1977 to 2013.

This article examines the history and effect of the Consensus Development Program (CDP) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Introduced at a time when the relationship between the U.S. public and the medical profession was at a nadir, the CDP frequently placed the NIH in the middle of broader debates in medical practice and health policy during the last quarter of the 20th century. Drawing on published and archival sources, this paper sheds light on the challenges associated with collecting, assessing, and communicating evidence to medical professionals and convincing them to act on it in the name of improved health care. Administrators at the NIH sought a middle ground between changing medical practice and respecting professional autonomy, with varying degrees of success. This debate has continued implications today as tensions persist between scientific guidelines and the clinical medicine practiced by physicians and expected by patients.

Integrative Medicine and Case Management.

The evolution of the integration of health care modalities has changed. The National Institutes of Health founded office of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine in the early 1990s to investigate integrative therapies through scientific research. In December 2014, the name and mission were updated to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Case managers, the coordinators of health care, must understand the changes to "integrative medicine" and the allure of the alternative modalities.

Richard Hudson Quarles (1939-2015).

This is an obituary for Richard Hudson Quarles, an internationally renowned neuroscientist, who retired in 2007 after 39 years at the National Institutes of Health, and who died August 9, 2015 in Sandy Spring, Maryland, USA. Richard Hudson Quarles, circa 1984, courtesy of The NIH Record newsletter.

The Einstein-Brazil Fogarty: A decade of synergy

Abstract A rich, collaborative program funded by the US NIH Fogarty program in 2004 has provided for a decade of remarkable opportunities for scientific advancement through the training of Brazilian undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students from the Federal University and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation systems at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The focus of the program has been on the development of trainees in the broad field of Infectious Diseases, with a particular focus on diseases of importance to the Brazilian population. Talented trainees from various regions in Brazil came to Einstein to learn techniques and study fungal, parasitic and bacterial pathogens. In total, 43 trainees enthusiastically participated in the program. In addition to laboratory work, these students took a variety of courses at Einstein, presented their results at local, national and international meetings, and productively published their findings. This program has led to a remarkable synergy of scientific discovery for the participants during a time of rapid acceleration of the scientific growth in Brazil. This collaboration between Brazilian and US scientists has benefitted both countries and serves as a model for future training programs between these countries.

[Establishment and development of National Institutes of Health of the United States].

National Institutes of Health traces its root to a one-room laboratory created in 1887. Now it has become a federal agency including 27 institutes and centers, also one of the world biggest centers of biomedical research.Throughout the history of NIH, much experience is worth learning, for example: allocating persistent and sufficient funds, basing on basic research and adjusting its focus duly, expanding the scope of subsidizing and stressing talent cultivation.