US biomedical research threatened

US Biomedical Research under Siege

The stagnation of biomedical research funding in the US is placing great pressure on the research enterprise. It is time to consider some radical solutions.

Funding of US biomedical research, 2003-2008.

CONTEXT With the exception of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, funding support for biomedical research in the United States has slowed after a decade of doubling. However, the extent and scope of slowing are largely unknown. OBJECTIVE To quantify funding of biomedical research in the United States from 2003 to 2008. DESIGN Publicly available data were used to quantify funding fro...

Elias A . Zerhouni Clinical Sciences US Biomedical Research : Basic , Translational

Rescuing US biomedical research from its systemic flaws.

The long-held but erroneous assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biomedical science has created an unsustainable hypercompetitive system that is discouraging even the most outstanding prospective students from entering our profession--and making it difficult for seasoned investigators to produce their best work. This is a recipe for long-term decline, and the problems cannot be solved wit...

Future of fundamental discovery in US biomedical research.

Young researchers are crucially important for basic science as they make unexpected, fundamental discoveries. Since 1982, we find a steady drop in the number of grant-eligible basic-science faculty [principal investigators (PIs)] younger than 46. This fall occurred over a 32-y period when inflation-corrected congressional funds for NIH almost tripled. During this time, the PI success ratio (fra...