Back-to-back teleconferences on Feb. 23 shed light on both the mission of, and rationale for creating, a new National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and making it operational by next Oct. 1.

At both a late-morning meeting-by-phone of the Scientific Management Review Board and a subsequent telephone media availability, NIH director Dr. Francis Collins emphasized two themes in defending the NCATS proposal: it will “advance the discipline of translational science and catalyze the development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics,” he said.

Collins explained that NIH has a long history of conducting both translational science and drug development; the AIDS drug AZT and cancer drug Taxol, for example, were developed by NIH-supported investigators. He also cited a recent paper in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that, from 1990 to 2007, one-fifth of all new molecular entities submitted to the FDA for priority review as potential therapies were discovered by NIH intramural or extramural scientists.

Combat veteran Todd Bowers speaks at NIH.

The nation has been at war for nearly 10 years, and those who have been fighting have borne a disproportionate burden of this responsibility for the country.

Only about one-half of 1 percent of the population is in the armed forces, which means a majority of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have endured multiple combat deployments.

Some don’t return, but the ones who do are often not the same.