Welcome to the Leadership Journal

I had the pleasure of joining NHLBI grantee Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., on a health and wellness panel at CNN’s Fit Nation tour in St. Paul, Minn., last weekend.

President Obama and Secretary Sebelius traveled to the NIH today to announce the unprecedented $5 billion that has so far been allocated to biomedical research through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In his speech, the President singled out heart disease as an area that will benefit from an intense, stimulus-funded research focus.

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), Congress appropriated $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research, or CER, with $400 million allocated to the NIH.  To help ensure that the government aligns its priorities with national needs, the legislation created a Federal Coordinating Council (FCC) of senior federal officials who were charged to inventory and articulate major gaps in federal CER efforts.  The FCC was also asked to make recommendations to the Secretary of HHS about how best to spend the Department’s $400 million allocation. 

Last week the NHLBI leadership team recognized numerous members of the NHLBI staff for the key role they played in maximizing the investment in science through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Their hard work spent managing and tracking grant applications, coordinating peer review meetings, providing scientific program support, and developing information technology tools, was deserving merit.

Perhaps no single health-related component of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 has received more attention than the $1.1 billion appropriation for comparative effectiveness research, or CER.  CER is a type of clinical or public health research that directly informs clinical practice or public policy.  Specifically, CER involves real-world comparisons of different existing strategies for prevention, treatment, or management of disease.  Even before the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 , the NHLBI has had a long and proud...

I would like to kick off the Leadership Journal by thanking those of you who are working so hard to make the NHLBI’s participation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 a success. From the NIH/NHLBI staff to our extramural research community, we are working together to ensure that this investment helps us expand our research in the prevention and treatment of heart, lung, and blood diseases while stimulating the U.S. economy through biomedical research at our nation’s institutions.