A Small Decrease Possible for NIH

A US Senate appropriations subcommittee approved a spending bill for 2012 that would decrease the National Institutes of Health's funding by $190 million to $30.5 billion, reports ScienceInsider. The bill would also create the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and dismantle the National Center for Research Resources. The Cures Acceleration Network, which is to be part of NCATS and whose aim is to "will help speed the translation and application of discoveries," would receive $20 million in funding, says a press release from the committee. The full committee is to vote on the bill today. ScienceInsider adds that the Senate and the House of Representatives will be working on an omnibus spending bill and that the Senate version would serve as a starting point. Our sister publication GenomeWeb Daily News has more on this here.