The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) supports basic research that increases understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. NIGMS-funded scientists investigate how living systems work at a range of levels, from molecules and cells to tissues and organs, in research organisms, humans, and populations. Additionally, to ensure the vitality and continued productivity of the research enterprise, NIGMS provides leadership in training the next generation of scientists, in enhancing the diversity of the scientific workforce, and in developing research capacity throughout the country.
All NIH Institutes and Centers support basic research that is relevant to the diseases, organ systems, stages of life, or populations within their mission areas. In contrast, NIGMS supports fundamental research that does not focus on those specific areas. NIGMS' research mission is aimed at understanding the principles, mechanisms, and processes that underlie living organisms, often using research models. NIGMS also supports the development of fundamental methods and new technologies to achieve its mission. NIGMS-supported research may utilize specific cells or organ systems if they serve as models for understanding general principles. Research with the overall goal to gain knowledge about a specific organ or organ system or the pathophysiology, treatment, or cure of a specific disease or condition will, in most cases, be more appropriate for another Institute or Center. See the NIH listing of Institutes, Centers, and Offices[1] to learn more about their specific missions.
NIGMS also supports research in specific clinical areas that affect multiple organ systems: anesthesiology and peri-operative pain; sepsis; clinical pharmacology that is common to multiple drugs and treatments; and trauma, burn injury, and wound healing.
Jon Lorsch, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences
NIGMS is organized into the following divisions that support research, research training, and capacity building in a range of scientific fields.
Division of Biophysics, Biomedical Technology, and Computational Biosciences[2]
Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology[3]
Division of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry[4]
Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity[6]
NIGMS was established in 1962. In Fiscal Year 2017, the institute's budget was $2.6 billion. The vast majority of this money funds grants to scientists at universities, medical schools, hospitals, and other research institutions throughout the country. At any given time, NIGMS supports more than 3,000 investigators and 4,000 research grants—around 11 percent of the total number of research grants funded by NIH as a whole. Additionally, NIGMS supports approximately 26 percent of the NRSA trainees who receive assistance from NIH.
Among the advances that scientists have made with NIGMS support are:
Discovering a gene-silencing process called RNA interference,[10] or RNAi, that is both a powerful research tool and a promising new approach for treating diseases.
Revealing how a protein's shape[11] affects its function, which plays a key role in health and disease and also informs the design of new drugs.
Increasing survival from burn injury,[12] in part by improving methods of wound care, nutrition and infection control.
Shedding light on the critical functions of carbohydrates,[13] sugar molecules found on all living cells that are vital to fertilization, inflammation, blood clotting and viral infection.
Modeling infectious disease outbreaks[14] and the impact of interventions through computer simulations to provide valuable information to public health policymakers.
Developing new methods to look inside cells[15] and other living systems. These approaches have advanced what we know about basic life processes in a range of organisms.
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH, is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late 1880s and is now part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Many NIH facilities are located in Bethesda, Maryland, and other nearby suburbs of the Washington metropolitan area, with other primary facilities in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and smaller satellite facilities located around the United States. The NIH conducts its own scientific research through the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) and provides major biomedical research funding to non-NIH research facilities through its Extramural Research Program.
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) is a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). It conducts and funds research on brain and nervous system disorders and has a budget of just over US$2.03 billion. The mission of NINDS is "to reduce the burden of neurological disease—a burden borne by every age group, every segment of society, and people all over the world". NINDS has established two major branches for research: an extramural branch that funds studies outside the NIH, and an intramural branch that funds research inside the NIH. Most of NINDS' budget goes to fund extramural research. NINDS' basic science research focuses on studies of the fundamental biology of the brain and nervous system, genetics, neurodegeneration, learning and memory, motor control, brain repair, and synapses. NINDS also funds clinical research related to diseases and disorders of the brain and nervous system, e.g. AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, stroke, and traumatic brain injury.
The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) is one of the institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is the third largest Institute of the National Institutes of Health, located in Bethesda, Maryland, United States. It is tasked with allocating about $3.6 billion in FY 2020 in tax revenue to advancing the understanding of the following issues: development and progression of disease, diagnosis of disease, treatment of disease, disease prevention, reduction of health care disparities within the American population, and advancing the effectiveness of the US medical system. NHLBI's Director is Gary H. Gibbons (2012–present).
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States Department of Health and Human Services. It supports and conducts research aimed at improving the health of children, adults, families, and communities, including:
The Medical Scientist Training Programs (MSTPs) are dual-degree training programs that streamline the education towards both clinical and research doctoral degrees. MSTPs are offered by some United States medical schools, who are awarded financial support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The goal of these training programs is to produce physician scientists who can translate laboratory discoveries into effective treatments for patients.
A biomedical scientist is a scientist trained in biology, particularly in the context of medical laboratory sciences or laboratory medicine. These scientists work to gain knowledge on the main principles of how the human body works and to find new ways to cure or treat disease by developing advanced diagnostic tools or new therapeutic strategies. The research of biomedical scientists is referred to as biomedical research.
The University of Virginia School of Medicine is the graduate medical school of the University of Virginia. The school's facilities are on the University of Virginia grounds adjacent to Academical Village in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, UVA SoM is the tenth oldest medical school in the United States. The School of Medicine confers Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, and is closely associated with both the University of Virginia Health System and Inova Health System.
The Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program is an MD–PhD program based in New York City that was formed by combining earlier MD–PhD programs that had their inceptions in 1972. The current version of the program, which is operated by Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's Sloan Kettering Institute, was created in 1991.
The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) was a center within the National Institutes of Health, a United States government agency. NCRR provided funding to laboratory scientists and researchers for facilities and tools in the goal of curing and treating diseases.
Brigid L. M. Hogan FRS is a developmental biologist noted for her contributions to mammalian development, stem cell research and transgenic technology and techniques. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Duke University, Born in the UK, she became an American citizen in 2000.
NCRR's IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) promote the development, coordination, and sharing of research resources and expertise that will expand the research opportunities and increase the number of competitive investigators in the IDeA-eligible states.
George Quentin Daley is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. He was formerly the Robert A. Stranahan Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Associate Director of Children's Stem Cell Program, a member of the Executive Committee of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He is a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (2007–2008).
Biomedical sciences are a set of sciences applying portions of natural science or formal science, or both, to develop knowledge, interventions, or technology that are of use in healthcare or public health. Such disciplines as medical microbiology, clinical virology, clinical epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, and biomedical engineering are medical sciences. In explaining physiological mechanisms operating in pathological processes, however, pathophysiology can be regarded as basic science.
A physician-scientist is traditionally a holder of a medical degree and a doctor of philosophy also known as an MD-PhD. Compared to other clinicians, physician-scientists invest significant time and professional effort in scientific research and spend correspondingly less time in direct clinical practice with ratios of research to clinical time ranging from 50/50 to 80/20. Physician-scientists are often employed by academic or research institutions where they drive innovation across a wide range of medical specialties and may also use their extensive training to focus their clinical practices on specialized patient populations, such as those with rare genetic diseases or cancers. Although they are a minority of both practicing physicians and active research scientists, physician-scientists are often cited as playing a critical role in translational medicine and clinical research by adapting biomedical research findings to health care applications. Over time, the term physician scientist has expanded to holders of other clinical degrees—such as nurses, dentists, and veterinarians— who are also included by the United States National Institutes of Health in its studies of the physician-scientist workforce (PSW).
Omolola (Lola) Eniola-Adefeso is a Nigerian-American chemical engineer and the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Macromolecular Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Eniola-Adefeso is also a co-founder and chief scientific officer of Asalyxa Bio. Her research looks to design biocompatible functional particles for targeted drug delivery.
JoAnn Trejo is an American pharmacologist, cell biologist, a professor, and also an assistant vice chancellor in the department of health sciences faculty affairs in the Department of Pharmacology at the School of Medicine at University of California, San Diego. She is also the assistant vice chancellor for Health Sciences Faculty Affairs. Trejo studies cell signalling by protease-activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). She is also actively involved in mentoring, education and outreach activities to increase the diversity of science.
Stephanie L. Constant is an American immunologist and science administrator. She was an associate professor at George Washington University and a scientific review officer at National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute before becoming chief of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Office of Scientific Review in 2017.
Gary L. Johnson is an American scientist and Professor recognized for his work with oncogenes and stem cells in the fields of molecular pharmacology and cancer cell biology. His other research interests include signaling networks controlling cell function and disease and the behavior of the kinome en masse in cancer.
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