Here It Is

After much criticism and a false start, the US National Institutes of Health has established its new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and abolished the National Center for Research Resources. The changes came with the approval of an appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012 by Congress and the President on Friday.

NCATS will have a budget of $575 million, according to an NIH news release. That funding is "primarily a reallocation of funds from programs previously located in the NIH Office of the Director, National Human Genome Research Institute, and National Center for Research Resources." NIH adds that it is maintaining its funding ratio for basic and applied research.

NCRR's Web page lists the institutes and centers to which its programs have been moved, and says that NCRR-funded researchers should expect an e-mail from NIH with more information in the coming weeks.


OK! Looks like a musical

OK! Looks like a musical chairs game, but who will pay for the new Institute’s bureaucracy.

@Hyal2 - Existing staff and

@Hyal2 - Existing staff and resources are being reorganized under the new Center, as noted in the brief article above. Formation of NCATS is not an expansion of the current situation at NIH, other than Congress finally providing necessary funds to begin operation of the Cures Acceleration Network. CAN was established by Congress (but not funded) through the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.