Flatlining innovation at NIH

IN THE five years between 1998 and 2003, research grants by the National Institutes of Health doubled, fueling breakthrough work on the human genome and treatments for many diseases. Progress stalled after that, however, as Congress responded to the deficits caused by tax cuts and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by flat lining the institutes' budget. On an inflation-adjusted basis, the NIH budget has actually declined by 13 percent. A commitment to rebuilding the institutes' funding -- and the inventive laboratories all over the country the NIH finances -- should be a priority for the new Congress in this year's budget and in years to come.

Last week, scientists from nine leading research institutions, including Harvard, Partners HealthCare, and Yale, issued a report and testified to Congress on the threat this underfunding presents both to the struggle against disease and to the nation's leadership role in biomedical research. The golden age before 2003 opened up promising avenues of exploration in areas as different as autism and breast cancer, but the clampdown on spending has meant that the great majority of research grant applications go unfunded. Across the board, just 20 percent win grants; for the National Cancer Institute, the ratio is even lower -- just 11 percent. And successful grants there are regularly cut 24 to 29 percent from the requested amount.

The scarcity of funds forces scientists to spend more time burnishing grant applications and less time in the laboratory. It also creates an unhealthy bias toward research in tried-and-true areas and away from the unconventional. Perhaps most damagingly, the cutthroat competition for too little money discourages young scientists. The average age of a researcher receiving a first grant is now 41.7 years. In 1970, it was 34.2.

To a certain extent, this has caused some scientists to pursue research opportunities overseas, such as in free-spending Singapore or in European countries that can now lure their own scientists back from US institutions. But as the new report points out, there is an even more worrisome brain drain away from biomedical research altogether and toward fields like law and business. "Basically," said Joan Brugge, chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, the shortfall in funding "is destroying the infrastructure."

From discoveries like the effect of statin drugs on cholesterol levels to better understanding of the molecules involved in the regeneration of spinal cord nerves, NIH money has been critical. To preserve the nation's laboratories and ensure resumed progress in medical research, Congress should increase NIH funding by at least the 6.7 percent a year for three years that would recoup what has been lost to inflation.