President Obama Resists Cuts to Biomedical Research Funding

February 28, 2011 | by

In President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last month, he argued that government support for research and development to fund innovation is a necessary and critical investment that must be made, even in the face of a rising national debt. A coalition of biomedical researchers support his vision on science. The 2012 budget President Obama sent to Congress earlier this month seeks an increase in funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and in basic science at other agencies, while making cuts and freezes in many other areas of government.

Obama and biomedical research funding

IU Announces Plans for a Personalized Medicine Institute

February 22, 2011 | by

Earlier this month, Indiana University announced a major commitment to research in one of healthcare’s most promising fields, personalized medicine. The Indiana Institute for Personalized Medicine will pursue genome-based and pharmacogenomics studies in cardiology, pediatrics, obstetrics and cancer, as well as other areas [1]. The emergence of personalized medicine, which targets individualized treatment and care based on personal and genetic variation, is creating a thriving market. Indeed, the market for personalized medicine in the United States is $232 billion and is projected to grow 11% annually [2].

Health in Public Media: Highlight HEALTH Joins 170 Million Americans

February 18, 2011 | by

Congress and the White House are clashing over the federal budget. Congress is considering serious cuts in funding for all public broadcasting. Since January, three bills have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to cut or eliminate the $430 million currently allocated for the Corporation For Public Broadcasting (CBP). Pending a vote in congress this week, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), considered by the public to be the second-best use of taxpayer dollars (outranked only by defense spending [1]), could cease to exist.

170 Million Americans

Clarian Health Becomes Indiana University Health

January 24, 2011 | by

On Monday, Clarian Health — the second largest health organization in Indiana — officially changed its name to Indiana University Health [1]. The name better identifies the health system’s partnership with Indiana University and the IU School of Medicine, one of the nation’s largest medical schools.

IU Health

NIH to Establish Translational Medicine Center

January 18, 2011 | by

Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said last month that he is moving ahead with a plan to create a new center focused on translational medicine, presently called the National Center for the Advancement of Translational Sciences (NCATS) [1]. The strategy comes at a time of mounting frustration from researchers that the abundance of new information about the molecular basis of many diseases hasn’t led to the development of new therapies.

Translational research