The Research Advocate February 2008

In This Issue

From Capitol Hill

FY09 Appropriations Work Begins

From Research!America

Dentzer to Moderate National Forum
New Voter Guides on Science, Research and Health

In the News

Media Matters: Research in the News

Regular Features

President's Message
Member Spotlight: The Allen Institute for Brain Science

FY09 Appropriations Work Begins 

Throughout January, Research!America and the Campaign for Medical Research have been working cooperatively with the research community on how best to proceed on the FY09 appropriation effort for the National Institutes of Health. Advocates have agreed to again seek a 6.7% increase for NIH - or about $1.9 billion - the same request made by the community last year. Essentially this number is equal to the Biomedical Research and Development Price Index (BRDPI) plus 3% in real growth.

The Campaign for Public Health will work to secure an increase in FY09 for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention greater than that enacted in 2008 (2.8%) and has begun discussions with other stakeholders about the funding request for the agency. CPH has produced a new graph detailing the CDC's recent proposed and enacted core program funding levels, available at www.fundcdc.org.

Although Research!America, CMR, CPH and others in the research advocacy community will be taking every necessary step to achieve the best outcome possible for the NIH and CDC, the budget and appropriations processes are likely to be complicated by the crisis in the financial markets and the presidential election.

However, an important strategy will be positioning research to improve health as an integral component of a long-term package to stimulate economic growth. Research!America President and CEO Mary Woolley released a statement in advance of President Bush's final State of the Union address urging him to call for a renewed commitment to medical and health research as part of a growth package.

Given the challenging economic outlook, advocacy by every member of the research community will be essential to securing increases for NIH and CDC in FY09. Research!America will continue to feature the latest developments in the budget and appropriations processes here and on our Web site.

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Dentzer to Moderate National Forum

Susan Dentzer, health correspondent for "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS, will moderate the 2008 Research!America National Forum, Research for Health in 2008: Valuing Evidence and Enhancing Impact. Dentzer leads the award-winning "NewsHour" unit dedicated to in-depth coverage of health care, health policy and social security.

The March 18 forum will provide an engaging and interactive discussion on issues affecting the role of research and evidence in advancing the nation's health. The forum will be webcast for those unable to attend in person.

Forum panelists include:

Information Forecast has joined The Hill newspaper and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America as sponsors confirmed to date. To join them, e-mail cmcconnell@researchamerica.org.

To attend this free event, please register at www.researchamerica.org, and visit the site for more information about our webcast.

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New Voter Guides on Science, Research and Health

Voter education initiatives focused on research, science and health are gaining critical mass, as advocacy and professional groups work to convince presidential candidates to make these issues part of their platforms. The message for voters is that they must tell candidates that these topics are important.

Research!America and a coalition of 27 other organizations continue to promote Your Candidates-Your Health: Presidential Primaries 2008 to voters and candidates. The site features presidential candidates' responses to our questionnaire on health and research, public opinion poll findings on these issues and an e-mail sign-up for research advocacy alerts. Visit www.yourcandidatesyourhealth.org.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association of American Universities and Richard Lounsbery Foundation have launched an online resource devoted to science and technology in the 2008 presidential campaign: http://election2008.aaas.org/. The site features candidates' positions on science and technology plus news stories, policy reports, election calendars and other resources. Visitors can also register for e-mail updates.

The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology has launched ScienceCures to raise the profile of federal funding for medical research among candidates and the public. The initiative encourages scientists to call on candidates to reinvigorate our national investment in scientific research. At www.sciencecures.org, visitors can contact candidates, write letters to news media and even register to vote.

A Kaiser Family Foundation site, www.health08.org, offers resources to track health issues during campaign season. It includes comparisons of candidates' health care proposals, the public's views about health issues and about the candidates, videos and podcasts from the campaign trail, and an events calendar.

Help shape the debate in this year's presidential election process! Visit all of these sites to become informed and tell candidates you want to know their views on research, science and health.

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Media Matters

R&D Funding Concerns

In December, Research!America issued a statement expressing disappointment about research funding in the final appropriations bill Congress passed, the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2008 (H.R. 2764). It includes a budget increase of less than 1% for the National Institutes of Health and a 2.8% increase for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nancy Granese, executive director of the Campaign for Medical Research, told The Scientist she was "extremely disappointed... that the NIH would not be getting the 6.7% budget increase that the research community had hoped for." The Scientist article was picked up on the public health blog Effect Measure at www.scienceblogs.com. Evan Jones, chair of the Campaign for Public Health and Research!America board member, contributed a guest column to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He wrote, "The small percentage increase for the CDC fails to keep up with inflation by about $427 million."

U.S. Ranks Last on Preventable Deaths Measure

The U.S. ranked last among 19 industrialized countries in a new study on preventable death conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study, supported by The Commonwealth Fund, was published in the journal Health Affairs and was cited in USA Today.

Collaboration between Bio and Pharma

Biotechnology Industry Organization President Jim Greenwood told PharmAsia News that he sees "less of a sharp line" distinguishing biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, but rather "a continuum that begins at the university, runs through small start-up companies, to medium-sized biotechnology companies and into large pharmaceutical companies."

Presidential Candidates' Views on Research

The presidential primaries present the right opportunity to inform presidential candidates about scientific issues such as stem cell research and climate change, according to an editorial in Nature magazine. Last year, Research!America launched Your Candidates-Your Health, asking presidential candidates where they stand on issues related to health and research.

In his monthly letter published in The AAMC Reporter, Darrell Kirch, MD, Association of American Medical Colleges president and CEO, and Research!America board member, encouraged readers to thank candidates who have responded and ask those who have not to weigh in on these important issues. AAMC is a partner in Your Candidates-Your Health.

Rear Adm. Susan J. Blumenthal, MD, professor at Georgetown and Tufts University Schools of Medicine and former Assistant U.S. Surgeon General, stressed the importance of having presidential candidates articulate their views on health in a Huffington Post blog entry. She cited data from a 2007 Research!America poll that found 86% of Americans think science is very important for our health and 78% think it is very important for our competitiveness as a nation.

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President's Message

The news in January that the U.S. ranks LAST among the top 19 industrialized nations in measures of health care system performance resulting in preventable deaths, and the sour economic news worldwide, should be a wake-up call.

We head into February with economic news besting the war in Iraq at the top of the national agenda. Yet no one is linking this in any way to failure to invest more vigorously in research for health. This is the time for stakeholders in research to talk about the "facts on the ground" in regard to the economic impact of research in your state - to help you do this, use our new Economic Impact of Research by State tool at www.researchamerica.org/state_econ.

You can also check out what the top three Democratic candidates for president say they will do to assure that research continues to contribute to the economy, at www.yourcandidatesyourhealth.org. Please note you will NOT find what the Republican candidates say they will do. It is critical to urge them to respond to this visible-to-all-voters Web site, and I urge you to do just that. Why all this focus on the presidential candidates? Because these individuals and this election cycle are key to change. We in the research community need to be working for change now; working to assure that there is breakthrough leadership for research in the next administration, regardless of who heads it. For my further thoughts in this regard, shared earlier this year with our Board of Directors, see the members-only section of our Web site at www.researchamerica.org/for_members.

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Member Spotlight: The Allen Institute for Brain Research

The Allen Institute for Brain Science is an independent, 501(c)(3) non-profit medical research organization dedicated to performing innovative basic research on the brain and distributing its discoveries to researchers around the world.

Philanthropist Paul G. Allen, who cofounded Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1976 (before leaving the company in 1983), was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease in the early 1980s. With Jody Patton, he founded the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2001 as a way to further the fields of neuroscience and genomics. The Allen Brain Atlas was its first project and got under way just after the Human Genome Project was completed.

The atlas is an open access, Web-based, 3-D map of gene expression in the adult male mouse brain detailing more than 20,000 genes at the cellular level. It is a comprehensive resource for researchers that reveals where each gene is expressed, or "turned on."

The institute's infrastructure took a year to build, said Elaine Jones, the institute's chief operating officer. In its 35,000 square feet lab, more than 100 scientists, including 30 PhDs, work on compiling and analyzing the data. The microscope room is a unique feature: a dozen scopes operate automatically, analyzing slides around the clock.

"Our data saves researchers the time of doing it on their own," Jones said. "Researchers could spend their entire career on one or two genes, but we have that data on all genes and in context. Researchers can then access the gene they're interested in, along with all its neighbors."

This type of data is critical to enhancing research surrounding human neurological diseases and disorders, including developing drug targets. Epilepsy, autism, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's are just a few diseases potentially helped by the institute's work.

The institute also makes available mathematical tools for analyzing and putting the data to use. Everything is online and free for researchers around the world.

"We announced the completion and key findings of the brain atlas in September 2006, in Washington, DC," Jones said. "There, many leaders from advocacy groups were able to attend. The reality is that advocacy groups' constituencies are why you do research."

The institute is a private- public partnership, although its funding is primarily from private philanthropists. Funding for the National Institutes of Health is still a priority for the institute, Jones said.

"We really believe that the federal government is the leader in health science research," Jones said. "And in any industry, you want to work with the leaders."

She said membership in Research!America helps make working with the government more efficient. "Knowing Research!America is advocating for us in DC, and watching what happens, is fabulous," she said. "When a bill comes up that impacts NIH, thanks to Research!America's advocacy communications, we‘re able to be on the phone calling our senators and representatives."

The institute soon will announce its next big projects. For more information see www.alleninstitute.org. To access the brain atlas, visit www.brain-map.org.

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Research!America members can download the entire February Research Advocate using their member log in. E-mail kfuller@researchamerica.org if you need your log-in information.