The year 1998 was good for medical researchers-especially Dr. Kristin Newby.
Congress passed legislation seeking to double the budget of the National Institutes of Health-85 percent of which is spent funding research-over the next five years, and Newby, an associate professor of medicine at Duke's School of Medicine, had just received one of the agency's most prestigious awards. The grant, known as the K award, helps launch the careers of young researchers and financially supported Newby's work on risk factors for heart attacks in women until 2003.
A decade later, Newby finds herself predominantly funded by the private sector after several grant proposals to the NIH, including two for the prestigious R01 Research Project Grant, were not approved. The R01 grant, which provides the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to open a lab, hire staff and purchase equipment, has long been regarded as the NIH's most important award, and scientists unable to secure one often opt to abandon careers in biomedical research.
"Assistant professors cannot get going in their careers until they get their first R01," said Denis Guttridge, associate professor at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "Sure there's private money, but this is also hard to obtain and the funding level typically is not sufficient to sustain long-term research that can make a real difference."
Newby's situation reflects a broader trend toward private funding, said Kristen O'Berry, manager of faculty finance and administration at the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
"Three to four years ago, funding was split about 50-50 between industry and government," she said. "Now, around 60 percent of our research is industry-funded, and we've had to ramp up our support for those types of projects."
Newby is currently revising her proposal and remains hopeful that her second request will be approved.
"NIH funding is important because of what it represents," she said. "It's peer-reviewed and hard to get, and there's some honor associated with having NIH funding. It has been one of the traditional currencies of academic research and has been used as consideration for promotion."
'A crisis for biomedical research'
Newby is one of twelve promising researchers profiled in "A Broken Pipeline?" a report prepared by seven major academic medical centers, including Duke, and presented at a March news conference in Washington, D.C.
In the document, medical school leaders and scientists argued that current levels of NIH funding, which have remained around $29 billion annually since 2003 and have actually decreased in inflation-adjusted terms, could threaten the nation's position as a leader in medical research.
"If allowed to continue, failure to recruit new investigators will erode our nation's capacity to compete within the global biomedical market," said Norka Ruiz Bravo, NIH's deputy director for extramural research.
The report also expresses concern that difficulties securing government funding could discourage young scientists from pursuing careers in research.
"What a strange business this is," said Dr. Nancy Andrews, dean of the School of Medicine. "We stay in school forever. We have to battle the system with only a one in eight or one in ten chance of getting funded. We give up making a living until our forties. And we do it because we want to help the world. What kind of crazy person would go for that?"
The medical school has responded to funding concerns with its Bridge Funding Program, established in early 2007. Researchers whose grant proposals are not approved by the NIH are eligible to submit for awards of up to $100,000. The program's grants are designed to support researchers' work until they can resubmit their proposals to the NIH, which has three application cycles each year.
Candidates requesting bridge funding are evaluated based on their responses to the concerns cited in the NIH's proposal critique and decisions are based on the likelihood that their proposals will be successful upon resubmission, said Sally Kornbluth, vice dean of basic science in the School of Medicine.
Despite an NIH funding situation Andrews described as "a crisis for biomedical research," Duke continues to sit near the top of the list of the nation's most generously funded universities.
Duke researchers received $388 million in NIH grants in fiscal year 2006, earning the University a second place ranking, compared to the $350 million and fifth place spot Duke was awarded in fiscal year 2005. Johns Hopkins University topped the rankings both years, receiving $448 million and $449 million respectively.
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