For 45 years, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) has supported a broad spectrum of basic biomedical research. Through these studies, scientists have explored the unknown, and their pursuit of fundamental questions in biology—and interrelated aspects of chemistry and physics—has led to many important medical advances. This basic research has had other tangible benefits, contributing to the development of the $40 billion biotechnology industry1 and helping to drive the nation’s ability to maintain global competitiveness.
The payoffs from this investment continue to be impressive, as evidenced by the fact that NIGMS has funded the Nobel Prize-winning work of 64 scientists to date. The two most recent are Drs. Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, who won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their pioneering work on gene targeting in mice. Their creativity and diligence transformed the biomedical research landscape, enabling scientists to study the roles of individual genes in living animals. Since most genes in mice are closely related to human genes, these methods have dramatically advanced medical research.
Almost all of today's medical breakthroughs have underpinnings in basic research from years before. To arrive at a time when we can truly predict and prevent diseases decades before symptoms occur and irreversible damage has already been done, we need to expand our knowledge of complex biological systems. Currently, we are just beginning to understand how molecular networks contribute to maintaining the body’s health and how their dysfunction triggers disease.
NIGMS values and fosters an open dialogue with the scientific community about trends and opportunities in its research areas. In 2007, we extended our conversation further by engaging in a strategic planning process to help chart our course for the next 5 years. We collected broad input both before and during the development of this plan. We received strong support from our stakeholders for many aspects of our approaches to supporting basic research and training.
Investing in Discovery, the NIGMS Strategic Plan for 2008-2012, articulates the Institute’s core principles and shows how we will make decisions to ensure that a stable basic research environment can continue to sustain vital progress in biomedical and behavioral research.
Our main strategy is to support competitive, investigator-initiated studies in areas ranging from cell growth to chemical methods to drug metabolism. These projects have as a common ingredient the quest for finding the biological principles and mechanisms that underlie health and disease.
As we gathered input for our strategic planning, we heard from some members of the scientific community who questioned our decision to use a portion of our funds for large-scale science projects rather than supporting a greater number of individual investigator-designed projects. Through the self-study that drove our strategic planning, we affirmed that multiple approaches are needed to solve complex research problems. Sometimes this calls for small teams or individuals. Other times, it requires multi-institution collaborations in which NIGMS plays a critical role in forging connections and making the resources developed as a result of these projects broadly available to scientists everywhere. Our job is to strike the right balance.
The feedback we received prompted us to redouble our efforts to communicate what we are doing, why we are doing it, and the value of sponsoring a multitude of research approaches. All NIGMS investments—large or small—are carefully considered, scientifically vetted, and rigorously monitored. To further leverage our resources, we continue to seek collaborative and shared research opportunities with other agencies and NIH institutes and centers in areas that show particular promise.
Science is a human endeavor, and a key element of our strategic plan is to maintain a healthy pipeline of intellectual talent. It is critical that this pipeline draw on—and reflect—the diversity of the U.S. population. To this end, we are adopting a comprehensive, systems-based approach to addressing future workforce development.
Biomedicine is evolving at an ever-increasing rate as new advances build on those from the past. We firmly believe that the Institute's long-term investments in a diverse and balanced portfolio of research will yield the breakthroughs of tomorrow. And we know that the new knowledge they provide will spur progress toward predictive, personalized, and preemptive medicine.
1 Hildreth M. Resilience: America's Biotechnology Report 2003, Ernst & Young, July 2003