National Institutes of Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) 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. It consists of 27 separate institutes and centers which includes the Office of the Director. In July of 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Dr. Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., to be the Director of the NIH. On August 7th 2009, the US Senate confirmed Dr. Collins by unanimous vote.

The predecessor of the NIH began in 1887 as the Laboratory of Hygiene. It grew and was reorganized in 1930 by the Ransdell Act into the National Institute of Health (singular at the time). As of 2003, the NIH was responsible for 28%—about US$26.4 billion—of the total biomedical research funding spent annually in the U.S., with most of the rest coming from industry.

The NIH is divided into two parts: the "Extramural" parts of NIH are responsible for the funding of biomedical research outside of NIH, while the "Intramural" parts of NIH conduct research. Intramural research is primarily conducted at the main campus in Bethesda, Maryland and the surrounding communities. The National Institute of Aging and the National Institute on Drug Abuse are located in Baltimore, Maryland, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is in Research Triangle, North Carolina. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases NIAID maintains Rocky Mountain Labs in Hamilton, Montana, with an emphasis on virology.

The goal of NIH research is to acquire new knowledge to help prevent, detect, diagnose, and treat disease and disability, from the rarest genetic disorder to the common cold. The NIH mission is to uncover new knowledge that will lead to better health for everyone. NIH works toward that mission by: conducting research in its own laboratories; supporting the research of non-Federal scientists in universities, medical schools, hospitals, and research institutions throughout the country and abroad; helping in the training of research investigators; and fostering communication of medical and health sciences information.

Centers of the NIH

In addition to being divided by research area, NIH has many operating groups called centers which operate within across all of the Institutes.

Office of the Director

The Office of the Director is the central office at NIH. The OD is responsible for setting policy for NIH and for planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all the NIH components. Program offices in the Office of the Director are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH and for planning and supporting research and related activities. Current program areas are: minority health, women's health, AIDS research, disease prevention, and behavioral and social sciences research.

Program offices within the Office of the Director fund research through the institutes:

Cancer

The 2010 United States federal budget invests over $6 billion for cancer research at the National Institutes of Health as part of the multi-year commitment to double cancer research funding.

Economic impact

In 2000, a report from from a Joint Economic Committee of Congress outlined the benefits of NIH research. It noted that some econometric studies had given its research, which was funded at $16 billion a year in 2000, a rate of return of 25 to 40 percent per year. It also found that of the 21 drugs with the highest therapeutic impact on society introduced between 1965 and 1992, public funding was "instrumental" for 15.

Translation

The phrase "National Institutes of Health" occurs as such in the following languages: English, Catalan, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish.

Translation(s) in other languages: Arabic: معاهد الصحة الوطنية الأمريكية, Bulgarian: Национални институти по здравеопазване, Persian: موسسات ملی بهداشت ایالات متحده آمریکا, Korean: 미국 국립 보건원, Hebrew: המכונים הלאומיים לבריאות, Japanese: アメリカ国立衛生研究所, Ukrainian: Національний інститут охорони здоров'я США, Chinese: 國立健康研究院 (美國).