![]() | |
Agency overview | |
---|---|
Formed | 1930 |
Preceding agency |
|
Headquarters | Bethesda, Maryland |
Agency executive |
|
Parent agency | Department of Health & Human Services |
Website | irp.nih.gov |
The NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) is the internal research program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), known for its synergistic approach to biomedical science. [1] With 1,200 Principal Investigators and over 4,000 Postdoctoral Fellows conducting basic, translational, and clinical research, the NIH Intramural Research Program is the largest biomedical research institution on earth. [2] The unique funding environment of the IRP facilitates opportunities to conduct both long-term and high-impact science that would otherwise be difficult to undertake. With rigorous external reviews ensuring that only the most outstanding research secures funding, [3] the IRP is responsible for many scientific accomplishments, including the discovery of fluoride to prevent tooth decay, the use of lithium to manage bipolar disorder, and the creation of vaccines against hepatitis, Hemophilus influenzae (Hib), and human papillomavirus (HPV). [4] In addition, the IRP has also produced or trained 21 Nobel Prize-winning scientists. [4]
Within the framework of the NIH mandate, the Intramural Research Program's mission is to: [5]
The NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) traces its roots to 1887, when a one-room laboratory on Staten Island was created within the Marine Hospital Service, a predecessor agency to the U.S. Public Health Service. [6] This laboratory evolved into the Hygienic Laboratory, which moved to Washington, D.C., in 1891 and, with the Ransdell Act of 1930, became the National Institute of Health. [7] Several of the IRP's initial Institutes were established over the next two decades and, after World War II, Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, outlined a program for postwar scientific research that affirmed the contributions of "remote and unexpected fields of medicine and the underlying sciences" in the progress against disease and the benefits of cooperative endeavors with industry and academia. [1]
The disease orientation and categorical structure of the IRP had its genesis in the establishment of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1944. [1] In 1948, Congress passed the National Heart Act, which created the National Heart Institute, and soon after established institutes for research on mental health, oral diseases, neurological problems, and blindness. [1] Today, the IRP consists of individual programs housed in 23 of the NIH Institutes and Centers, creating a network of multi-disciplinary, federally funded laboratories with an emphasis on translational research. [5] The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, the world's largest clinical research hospital, is designed to foster smooth transitions between laboratory work, patient studies, and bedside cures, facilitating the translation of laboratory findings to new approaches for the prevention and cure of human diseases. [4]
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is composed of 27 Institutes and Centers, most of which include research programs led by a Scientific Director and conducted by federal researchers and their trainees at one of several NIH campus locations. Collectively, these research programs encompass the Intramural Research Program (IRP). [2] The IRP includes the United States National Library of Medicine, an international resource for researchers, and the NIH Clinical Center, the world's largest clinical research hospital.
Intramural researchers are affiliated with individual Laboratories, Branches or Centers, which are typically organized around common thematic research goals and approaches, much like a department or center at an academic institution. [2] Within these larger structures, Principal Investigators run Sections or Units devoted to their independent research goals. Core facilities, supported by staff scientists and clinicians, are among the shared resources available to IRP researchers. [2]
Scientific interests are not bound by the organizational structure. There exists a full spectrum of scientific interest groups (called SIGs) that brings researchers from different Institutes and Centers together around common areas of scientific interest where ideas can be shared and collaborations initiated. [8] In addition, institutes come together to work cooperatively on major initiatives focused on unraveling the complexities of disease. [8] The Center for Human Immunology, Autoimmunity and Inflammation (CHI) is one example of this trans-NIH cooperative research approach. [9]
As with all biomedical research, the scientific programs of the IRP's 1,200 Principal Investigators are subject to periodic scientific review. [4] Each Principal Investigator must be peer-reviewed at least once every four years by an external Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC). The BSC evaluates the quality of research, the resources that should be allocated to scientists, and the promise of tenure-track investigators for future success in their careers. [4] These evaluations are based on the Principal Investigator's past accomplishments, objectives met, and future plans. [4] The review criteria mirror those used by extramural peer review with the addition of considering whether the investigator is taking advantage of the special features of the NIH intramural scientific environment and employing useful collaborative arrangements. [4] As a result of these reviews, recommendations for altering allocated resources are prepared by the BSC for the Scientific Director, the Institute or Center Director, the NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Research, and the Institute or Center (IC) National Advisory Council or Board. [4]
Additionally, each IRP as a whole is subject to periodic review by Blue Ribbon Panels. These panels, made up of expert external reviewers appointed by the NIH Director, ensure that the program's overall objectives are current, relevant, distinctive, and appropriate to the unique research environment of the IRP. [4] Blue Ribbon Panel reports are addressed to the NIH Director, the Advisory Committee of the Director, and the IC Director.
In addition to the external NIH Boards of Scientific Counselors and Blue Ribbon Panels, the NIH IRP receives regular and periodic independent evaluations by the following external bodies: [4]
Nina F. Schor, M.D. is the Deputy Director for Intramural Research and heads the Office of Intramural Research (OIR). [2] In this role, he is responsible for oversight and coordination of all intramural research, training and technology transfer activities. [2]
Name | Acronym | Description | Est. |
---|---|---|---|
National Cancer Institute | NCI | The Center for Cancer Research (CCR) conducts basic and clinical cancer research and develops novel therapeutic interventions for cancer and HIV patients; the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG) conducts population and multidisciplinary research to discover the genetic and environmental determinants of cancer and new approaches to cancer prevention. | 1937 |
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases | NIAID | Conducts basic and clinical research related to immunology, allergy, and infectious diseases to promote the development of new vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics; the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) conducts research that facilitates the development of effective vaccines for human disease, with a focus on AIDS. | 1948 |
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research | NIDCR | NIDCR conducts basic laboratory, translational, and clinical research in support of craniofacial and dental health using the latest techniques in biomedical science. | 1948 |
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases | NIDDK | NIDDK conducts research related to metabolic, digestive, kidney, and hematologic diseases and diabetes mellitus. | 1948 |
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute | NHLBI | NHLBI performs scientific and clinical research to better understand the biology and clinical pathology of heart, lung, and blood diseases. | 1948 |
National Institute of Mental Health | NIMH | NIMH researches the mechanisms of normal brain function at the behavioral, systems, and molecular levels, and conducts clinical investigations of mental illness. | 1949 |
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke | NINDS | NINDS conducts basic, translational, and clinical research aimed at relieving the burden of neurological disorders and stroke. | 1950 |
National Library of Medicine | NLM | The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) creates and maintains databases for the medical and scientific communities and general public, including literature, molecular, and genomic databases. The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications (LHNCBC) conducts and supports research and development with the goal of improving access to high quality biomedical information for individuals around the world. | 1956 |
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development | NICHD | NICHD focuses its research on the biology of human development and reproduction to ensure the birth of healthy babies and the health of infants and children into adulthood. | 1962 |
National Eye Institute | NEI | NEI carries out basic and clinical research to develop therapeutic interventions for the prevention and treatment of visual system diseases. | 1968 |
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences | NIEHS | NIEHS aims to reduce the burden of human illness by understanding how the environment influences the development and progression of disease. | 1969 |
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism | NIAAA | NIAAA aims to identify the causes and consequences of alcoholism and excessive drinking, and to understand the underlying biological processes of disease. | 1970 |
National Institute on Drug Abuse | NIDA | NIDA conducts state-of-the-art research on basic mechanisms that underlie drug abuse and addiction, and develops new methods of treatment. | 1973 |
National Institute on Aging | NIA | NIA provides an academic setting for a comprehensive effort to understand aging through multidisciplinary investigator-initiated research. | 1974 |
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases | NIAMS | NIAMS focuses on studying diseases that involve bones, joints, muscles, and skin through clinical and laboratory research. | 1986 |
National Institute of Nursing Research | NINR | NINR seeks to understand the underlying biological mechanisms of a range of symptoms, their effect on patients, and how patients respond to interventions. | 1986 |
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders | NIDCD | NIDCD conducts basic and clinical research in the areas of human communication. | 1988 |
National Human Genome Research Institute | NHGRI | NHGRI conducts laboratory, clinical, and behavioral research focused on human genetic disease and develops methods for the detection, prevention, and treatment of genetic disorders. | 1989 |
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering | NIBIB | NIBIB integrates engineering and physical sciences with the life sciences to advance basic research and medical care with biomedical technologies. | 2000 |
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities | NIMHD | NIMHD conducts research on differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups. | 2010 |
National Institutes of Health Clinical Center | CC | The Clinical Center is the nation's largest hospital devoted entirely to leading-edge clinical biomedical research. | 1953 |
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine | NCCAM | NCCAM investigates the potential clinical utility of selected complementary and alternative medicine modalities that might allay or attenuate life "stressors". | 1998 |
Center for Information Technology | CIT | CIT develops leading-edge computational methods and tools to solve complex biomedical laboratory and clinical research problems. | 1964 (as the Division of Computer Research and Technology (DCRT)) |
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences | NCATS | The NCATS Division of Preclinical Innovation (DPI) leads scientific programs and projects designed to advance new technologies that make the preclinical phase and early clinical phases of translation more predictive and efficient. | 2012 |
The National Institutes of Health Clinical Center, the world's largest hospital entirely devoted to clinical research, is a national resource that enables the rapid translation of scientific observations and laboratory discoveries into new approaches for diagnosing, treating and preventing disease. [10] Due to its position on the main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, the Institutes and Centers of the IRP are able to mobilize clinical resources quickly and effectively to respond to emerging scientific challenges and opportunities. [10]
The NIH Clinical Center is the 2011 recipient of the Lasker-Bloomberg Public Service Award, given by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. [11] This award honors the Clinical Center for serving as a model institution that has, since 1953, transformed scientific advances into innovative therapies and provided high-quality care to patients and recognizes the Clinical Center's rich history of medical discovery through clinical research. [11]
At the NIH Clinical Center, clinical research participants—more than 480,000 since the hospital opened in 1953—are active partners in medical discovery. [12] This partnership has resulted in a long list of medical milestones, including the development of chemotherapy; the first use of an immunotoxin to treat a malignancy; identification of the genes that cause kidney cancer, leading to the development of six new, targeted treatments for advanced kidney cancer; the discovery that lithium helps depression; the first gene therapy; the first AIDS treatment; and the development of tests to detect AIDS/HIV and hepatitis viruses in blood, which led to a safer blood supply. [12] The NIH Clinical Center sees 10,000 new research participants a year from around the world. [12]
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 Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research.
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 National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other activities related to the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer; the supportive care of cancer patients and their families; and cancer survivorship.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). NIAID's mission is to conduct basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases.
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.
The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), founded at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2000, is located in Bethesda, Maryland. It is one of 27 institutes and centers that are part of NIH, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Eva Lucille Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.A.N., F.A.N.A. is an American physician-scientist and one of the world’s leading authorities on neurodegenerative disease. Currently, she serves as the Russell N. DeJong Professor of Neurology at the University of Michigan, as well as Director of the NeuroNetwork for Emerging Therapies and ALS Center of Excellence at Michigan Medicine. She was also recently named the James W. Albers Distinguished University Professor of Neurology.
Translational research is research aimed at translating (converting) results in basic research into results that directly benefit humans. The term is used in science and technology, especially in biology and medical science. As such, translational research forms a subset of applied research.
The Vaccine Research Center (VRC), is an intramural division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The mission of the VRC is to discover and develop both vaccines and antibody-based products that target infectious diseases.
Eric D. Green is an American genomics researcher who had significant, start-to-finish involvement in the Human Genome Project. He is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a position he has held since 2009. Green is an ardent St. Louis Cardinals fan.
Avindra "Avi" Nath, is a physician-scientist who specializes in neuroimmunology. Nath is a senior investigator, and intramural clinical director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States. At NINDS, Nath also leads the Section of Infections of the Nervous System and plans to institute a translational research center. He previously served in several research and administrative positions at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The Center for Study of Gene Structure and Function is a consortium of fifty-three researchers. It is based at Hunter College in Manhattan. It focuses on cross-disciplinary and translational research by promoting dialogue and cooperation among scientists working in diverse biomedical research fields. It is funded by the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program of the National Center for Research Resources(NCRR) of the National Institute of Health (NIH) Since its establishment in 1985, the NIH has awarded the Gene Center over $38 million in federal grants.
The NIH Clinical Center is a hospital solely dedicated to clinical research at the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The Clinical Center, known as Building 10, consists of the original part of the hospital, the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center, and the newest addition, the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. The two parts are connected to form one large building.
The National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Training Program (CRTP) was a one-year education program aimed at highly qualified, research-oriented medical and dental students wanting to learn the theory and practice of clinical and translational research that ran from 1997 to 2012. It covered among other topics clinical research design, data analysis, bioethics, and critical review of the medical literature; but most of each fellow's time was devoted to conducting supervised clinical or translational research in their area of interest.
Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) is a society registered under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. It is also an autonomous institute of the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. It was set up in 2009 at Gurgaon and is now located in NCR Biotech Science Cluster, Faridabad along with the Regional Center for Biotechnology, Advanced Technology Platforms Center, Small Animal Facility, and Bio-incubator. Envisioned by former secretary of DBT, M. K. Bhan, the centre was created to enable faster transition of lab research to market. Pramod Garg is the executive director of THSTI.
Karen M. Frank is an American clinical pathologist and microbiologist researching the pathogenesis of Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia and resistant gram-negative bacteria. She is a senior clinician, principal investigator, and chief of laboratory medicine at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
Dr. Michael J. Lenardo, is the chief of the Molecular Development and Immune System Section and the founder and co-Director of the Clinical Genomics Program at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Trained as a geneticist, molecular biologist, and immunologist, his research examines how cells of the immune system defend themselves against various pathogens, including viruses and bacteria. His research has investigated genetic abnormalities in the immune system, mechanisms of cell death, genetic diseases of immune homeostasis and autoimmunity, and development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for diseases of the immune system. Lenardo's contributions to science and medicine have shown the possibilities of genomic research in developing precision medicine diagnoses and treatments for disease in humans. In 2006 he was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2019 he was inducted into the National Academies of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, considered among the highest honors awarded to a U.S scientist and medical researcher respectively.
Cynthia Dunbar is an American scientist and hematologist at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She is the Branch Chief of the Translational Stem Cell Biology Branch.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)