Breakthroughs in Bioscience

1
Breakthroughs in Bioscience

• From NIH-Funded Basic Research to Improved Health

2
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

• Nations medical research agency
• Funds the science that leads to medical
  advancement
• Located in Bethesda, MD but most funding is
  distributed to university researchers and
  physicians throughout the United States

3
NIH Saving Lives Through Science

• Current annual budget of around 28 billion
• Greater than 80 distributed throughout the
  country
• More than 50,000 grants
• 212,000 scientists
• 2,800 universities
• How much money is being spent in your local area?
• See http//grants1.nih.gov/grants/award/trends/co
  ng108dist9603.xls
• Portfolio of basic, translational, and clinical
  research

NIH has been involved in nearly all the medical
health related discoveries of the past century
4
How NIH Makes Science Happen

• Researchers working at local universities,
  hospitals and research institutions are dependent
  on federal support to fund their research, hire
  lab personnel and train young scientists
• Write research grant proposals to compete for
  funding
• Must explain why they think its a good idea, how
  theyre going to do the experiments, and what
  impact it will have on science medicine
• Proposal are reviewed in a two-tier system
• Peer-reviewed by scientists to ensure highest
  quality science
• Reviewed again for applicability to scientific or
  health priorities, by NIH officials and other
  stakeholders, including public members
• NIH review system is the envy of the world!
• Very competitive!!!
• Before 1 in 3 proposals funded, now closer to 1
  in 6
• Lots of high quality research not being done for
  lack of funding

5
Basic Research From Bench to Bedside

• Much of NIH funding goes to basic or fundamental
  research
• Basic research is driven by interest in a
  scientific question
• The main motivation is to expand knowledge and
  understanding, not to create or invent something
• However, the insight into how the human body
  works and understanding of how diseases and
  disorders operate provides the foundation for
  medical progress

"People cannot foresee the future well enough to
predict what's going to develop from basic
research. If we only did applied research, we
would still be making better spears." Dr.
George Smoot, Berkeley National Lab
6
What about medical breakthroughs?

• Medical breakthroughs often come from unrelated
  areas of science or medicine
• Research on cancer biology has led to drugs for
  heart disease viral diseases like influenza,
  Herpes AIDS and osteoporosis
• Physicists studying the effects of magnets on
  atomic particles made the discovery that gave us
  MRI
• Usually based on years or decades of fundamental
  knowledge
• Over time, scientists solve or find different
  pieces of the puzzle
• This makes it difficult to predict where the next
  breakthrough will come from
• Makes it imperative to support a broad range of
  scientific research
• Too risky for the private sector, federal funding
  is critical for research

7
Evolution of Research to Healthcare
Selected modern examples
8
Cardiovascular disease

• Information on the biochemical structure
  synthesis of cholesterol led to the development
  of statins
• Discoveries in basic kidney biology, and
  increased understanding of the molecular
  regulation of blood pressure converged with an
  unexpected finding involving snake venom to give
  us ACE inhibitors, one of our most effective
  hypertension medications
• Research into the mechanism of how the blood
  formed clots, together with the search to find a
  new cancer treatment and the first commercial use
  of recombinant technologies, resulted in rt-PA, a
  clot-busting drug that can prevent death from
  heart attack or stroke

RESULTS?? 63 REDUCTION IN DEATHS FROM HEART
DISEASE AND A 70 REDUCTION IN DEATHS DUE TO
STROKE MORE THAN 1 MILLION LIVES SAVED IN 2006
ALONE
9
Cardiovascular disease
60
70
Economic return of improved treatment
prevention 2.6 TRILLION
30-year Investment per American 110.00 Total
10
HIV / AIDS

• Fundamental knowledge of how viruses replicate
  gave scientists targets for therapy. Researchers
  looking for a new cancer drug hit one of those
  targets when they discovered a way to block
  replication, resulting in the development of AZT.
  
• Increased understanding of how HIV operates at
  the cellular and molecular level identified more
  targets, and eventually led to the combination of
  drugs knows as the triple cocktail.

RESULTS?? AIDS HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED FROM AN ACUTE
FATAL ILLNESS TO A CHRONIC CONDITION THE
PROPHYLACTIC USE OF ANTI-VIRALS PREVENTED ALMOST
350,000 DEATHS WORLDWIDE IN 2005
11
HIV / AIDS
Survival rates for those infected with HIV has
increased by 10 years
12
Cancer

• The discovery that estrogen played a role in some
  types of breast cancer, together with very basic
  research into the shape and characteristics of
  the estrogen receptor, gave us tamoxifen, which
  can reduce breast cancer incidence among women at
  risk by over 45.
• The breakthrough finding that human
  papillomavirus (HPV) could cause cervical cancer
  has led to a new vaccine that NIH estimated could
  reduce cervical cancer incidence by as much as
  90.
• While investigating the cellular machinery
  controlling cell growth, scientists found the 26S
  proteasome, the inhibition of which is the power
  behind bortezomib- now used to treat patients
  with multiple myeloma.

RESULTS?? FROM 1993-2002, CANCER DEATH RATES
DROPPED 1.1 PER YEAR MORE THAN 2/3 OF PEOPLE
DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER CAN EXPECT TO LIVE 5 YEARS
13
Cancer
30-year Investment per American 260.00 Total
14
Infant mortality

• Studies on the fundamental biology of lung
  function led to the discovery of a protein called
  surfactant. It was later discovered that this
  protein was crucial for survival of premature
  infants, decreasing the number of infant deaths
  from respiratory distress from 15,000 per year to
  less than 1,000 by 2002.
• The use of anti-virals to prevent mother to child
  HIV transmission has reduced the rate from 25 to
  nearly 1 in the U.S.
• Studies on a metabolite of progesterone, known as
  progesterone 17P, have led to the finding that
  injections of this compound could prevent
  pre-term delivery by as much as 30, which is
  particularly significant in African American
  women.

RESULTS?? IN LESS THAN A CENTURY, INFANT
MORTALITY IN THE U.S. HAS BEEN REDUCED BY 90
TRANSLATING TO ALMOST 500,000 BABIES SAVED PER
YEAR
15
Provide examples from your home institution or
laboratory

• Information on NIH funding in Congressional
  districts or geographic areas can be found here
• http//grants1.nih.gov/grants/award/awardtr.htm
• You can search the CRISP database for grants
  funded at your local institution here
• Interested in a specific disease or condition? Go
  here
• http//www.nih.gov/news/fundingresearchareas.htm

16
The Bottom Line

• People are living longer, healthier lives because
  of NIH funded medical research
• What were once swiftly fatal illnesses have
  become treatable or manageable conditions
• For those suffering from diseases that have no
  current treatment or cure, medical research
  provides hope which has a major impact on
  quality of life

17
The Challenge

• NIH funding is entirely dependent on
  Congressional support
• In recent years, Congressional support has
  diminished, and the NIH budget is slowly eroding
  from lack of funding and inflation
• Lack of understanding in Congress about the
  importance of medical research and the treatments
  and hope it provides

• Diminished investment in NIH loss of talented
  researchers missed opportunities delays in
  medical progress

18
All Politics is Local

• Insert here information about the importance of
  NIH to your local community Amount of funding to
  your institution (http//grants1.nih.gov/grants/aw
  ard/awardtr.htm) estimates of jobs created,
  which your university or local economic
  development council may be able to provide
• For information on how your members of Congress
  have voted or spoken out on NIH related issues,
  please contact the FASEB Office of Public
  Affairs 301-634-7650 or http//opa.faseb.org

19
Working Together for NIH

• Contact your member of Congress, write a letter
  to the newspaper
• Let them know that medical research is important
  to you
• Help educate policymakers and neighbors about the
  important work NIH is doing
• Nothing is more important than our health the
  National Institutes of Health (NIH) should be an
  American priority

20
Want to know more??
Please visit http//opa.faseb.org
Federation of American Societies for Experimental
Biology (FASEB)