Opening Day Delays Possible for NCATS

NIH Director Francis Collins may miss the deadline he set to get the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences up and running, reports Nature News. Collins has been aiming for the center to open on the first of October, but a lack of a 2012 budget for the US government may prevent him from making that date. However, Nature News says that NIH is working on a back-up plan to get the center funded an "anomaly" that is part of a continuing resolution that funds the government while the final budget is hashed out by Congress. "But the bar for an anomaly on a stop-gap funding bill can be high," Nature News adds. "Anomalies are usually limited to urgent matters such as emergency services that are set to expire and can't wait for a regular spending bill."