In his quest to fast-track a new translational medicine center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), agency director Francis Collins has encountered a rising tide of opposition. Now two US senators have joined the ranks of the disgruntled, concerned that their constituents will be hurt by the related dissolution of another NIH center.
Because NIH is limited by law to a fixed number of institutes and centers, Collins has recommended eliminating the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) in order to make way for the proposed National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The change could be reflected in the 2012 federal budget request expected from the White House on Monday.
In a letter provided to Nature today, Democratic senators Daniel Inouye of Hawaii (right) and Mark Begich of Alaska (far right), voice their “concern and opposition” to Collins’ plan for relocating a program currently housed within the NCRR. The letter, dated 1 February, is directed to Collins and his boss, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services.
The IDeA program – short for Institutional Development Award – is meant to redress an imbalance that sees a majority of NIH grant award funding landing in rich, heavily populated, states. Alaska and Hawaii have benefited from the program; two awards initiated in Alaska in 2001, for instance, will have delivered $67 million to the state by the end of 2014. Hawaii’s four current awards provided $9.6 million in 2010.
The senators write: “We find the current placement of the IDeA program with the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) to be working well.” They argue that NCRR staff who have become familiar with their states have helped to significantly grow the research enterprises there. “A disruption of the placement and expertise at NCRR will only serve to dismantle the laudable work that has been accomplished,” they complain.
Under this straw model recently proposed by agency officials, the IDeA program would for the time be located in an Interim Infrastructure Unit. The unit would house various NCRR programs until NIH leaders can figure out where they would be best placed among the agency’s other institutes and centers.
The senators are not the only ones who are concerned about the disruption they see as inherent in dissolving the NCRR. “I sense a continued uneasiness in virtually all of the IDeA [principal investigators] with the uncertainties that IDeA faces because of the restructuring of the NCRR,” Lucia A. Pirisi-Creek, an IDeA principal investigator wrote two days ago on NIH’s Feedback website. Pirisi-Creek is a professor in the department of pathology, microbiology and immunology at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. She adds that she “welcomes” the creation of NCATS per se. But, she writes, of the relocation of the IDeA program: “We worry about the practical ramifications of such a decision for the day-to-day management of our programs, the competition for new awards, and the protracted uncertainty that this solution would imply for a permanent home of the IDeA program.”
The senators have another problem with NIH’s plans. Under the straw model, a separate but related NCRR program, which also impacts Alaska and Hawaii, Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI), would be housed in the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The proposed separation of the RCMI program from the IDeA program does not sit well with Begich and Inouye. “Separation will exact an unnecessary toll on each,” they write.
The letter follows a leaked email listing 25 pointed questions about the proposed reorganization plan from John Bartrum, a former NIH budget director who now works for the House subcommittee that funds NIH. Bartrum’s email was obtained by Science and posted here on 27 January. Bartrum declined a request from Nature to make the email available directly.
Congressional feelings about the proposed reorganization matter. Under the 2007 law that lays down the ground rules for creating new institutes and centers at the agency, Congress has 180 days to speak up and squelch the plan if it so chooses. Nor is Inouye a fellow that NIH would want on its bad side: he chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which doles out all non-mandatory funding to agencies.
Collins could not be reached for comment at the time this story posted. We will update this space immediately should he respond to Nature‘s request for comment on the senators’ letter.