More than 15,000 medical scientists and researchers are competing for the opportunity to utilize funds allocated to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). President Barack Obama and his administration increased the NIH’s budget by an astounding 30 percent, making it possible for the NIH to extend additional funding to medical researchers across the country.
The NIH is the number one provider of grant funding for US universities, medical research companies and hospitals. As part of President Obama’s proposed economy-boosting efforts, the NIH budget was increased so that more jobs could be created – and, with new jobs will also come new medical discoveries.
“So many important discoveries are on the cusp of being made,” stated Richard Marchase, President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Much of the funding will go towards hiring new medical experts, scientists, and doctors who may be instrumental in finding new drugs, diagnostic methods and perhaps even cures for fatal diseases, such as malignant mesothelioma cancer.
The University of Chicago has reportedly filed almost 200 individual applications for increased research funding. A university spokesperson said that the amount requested by the university is almost five times the amount they might usually receive annually. The university is requesting funds that would be used to study lung tumors, breast cancer, and mesothelioma.
Other organizations, including Princeton University, are seeking funding to be used to investigate genomics, molecular biology, and other areas of medical science.
Previously, the NIH was given a budget of about $29 billion dollars. This year’s budget has increased by about $1.4 billion before factoring in stimulus funding. The NIH is comprised of 27 different research agencies.
All stimulus money allocated by President Obama in this year’s budget must be spent by September of 2010, and the President was expected to ask for another $6 billion dollars for the NIH last week. Two-thirds of the money is expected to go towards the creation of additional jobs.
For the doctors, researchers, and scientists who focus on the study of mesothelioma cancer, increased funding means that a cure for this always-fatal disease may be on the horizon. Mesothelioma typically strikes older adults between the ages of 55 and 75, and is conclusively linked to previous asbestos exposure. A vast number of US military veterans who served aboard Navy ships in World War II, for example, have contracted this disease due to the high levels of asbestos on WWII-era vessels. Firefighters, construction workers, and miners are also at an elevated risk of developing mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases.
Approximately 2,500 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in the US annually. Doctors like David Sugarbaker and Harvey Pass are just two of the thoracic oncologists who would benefit from the increase in NIH research funding.
