The US National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD) detailed their research priorities for countering bioterrorism on March 14, sketching the outline of what could be one of the largest funding reallocations by the NIH in years. Although the broad goals of the agenda—increasing funding for treatments, diagnostics, vaccines, and more basic research in key areas—are not surprising, according to researchers and executives, the document is already being scrutinized for hints of how the government will spend future funds to combat bioterrorism.
US President George W. Bush has already proposed a $1.8 billion boost for bioterrorism in the fiscal year 2003 NIH budget (Nat. Biotechnol. 20, 209, 2002), and NIH officials say they hope that earmark will grow as the rationale for increasing biodefense spending becomes clearer. The primary goal of the agenda was to broaden the range of researchers focused on bioterrorism, according to Carole Heilman, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (Bethesda, MD) division of microbiology and infectious disease. “When you thought of bioterrorism before, the community you worked with was military,” Heilman says. Now, she says the new research priorities should bring in “investigators in a wide variety of pathogen [research areas] who haven't necessarily thought about bioterrorism.”
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
