The government gave a dozen top universities about $100 million Tuesday to set up a network to speed scientific discoveries into better health care — and try to transform how medical research is done.
The idea: As medicine becomes increasingly specialized, it is harder than ever for scientists from different fields to share the information needed to turn laboratory discoveries into new treatments, and then get those advances into private doctors' offices. And for universities, scientific research can be as competitive as sports.
So the National Institutes of Health created a national consortium of universities that are supposed to cooperate instead, and remove barriers to turning medical research into health care reality.
Tuesday's announcement was the down payment. By 2012, the NIH plans to have 60 academic health centers on board, and hopes to provide them with a total of $500 million a year.
NIH Director Elias Zerhouni called the network crucial in an era of burgeoning technology, including almost daily discoveries of the genetic underpinnings of disease.
"We need to accelerate the way we ... bring all these discoveries from the bench to the bedside and make sure they reach the people," he said Tuesday.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2006/1...dical-research
10-12-2006, 12:12 PM
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