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> Dear Colleagues,
>
> This is not imaging related, but it is a very grave news that will affect
> many of us. I urge you to read on.
>
> On Dec. 7, 2010, the Scientific Management Review Board (SMRB)
> recommended that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) realign its
> resources to establish a new Center devoted to advancing translational
> sciences. The action came in response to NIH Director Francis Collins’s
> charge to the SMRB to formulate and recommend a plan for achieving
> optimal organization for therapeutic development within NIH.
>
> Due to the 2006 NIH Reauthorization Act, which capped the number
> of institute/Centers at the current number (27), the NIH cannot create a
> new center without eliminating an existing institute/center. As a result,
> the NIH has decided to dissolve the NCRR and reassign its programs
> and portfolios to other institutes/centers.
>
> For more information:
>
http://feedback.nih.gov/index.php/ncats/intro-read-more/>
> Also, click on "up-to-date information" link on the page above.
>
> It is a safe assumption that many American colleagues on this list have
> benefitted immensely from the resources and programs of the NCRR,
> especially the Shared Instrumentation Grants and monies that support
> many comparative medicine centers.
>
> This decision will greatly impact the abilities of core facilities to apply for
> instrument grants. If the NCRR portfolio is to be divided and administered
> by various individual institutes/centers, then our ability to bring together
> investigators from different fields but with the same need (e.g., a confocal
> or a flow cytometer) to apply for instrument grant will be immediately
> crippled. This new initiative will also allow individual departments to
> compete more successfully than facilities to obtain instruments due to
> their tightly aligned scientific themes. This will become very wasteful for
> the NIH very quickly as departments start duplicating instrumentation
> (and the necessary technical staff) to run services currently shared by
> many investigators supported by various NIH funds. The NCRR is a
> uniquely important source of scientific infrastructure whose investments
> have always been in the spirit of sharing. The ensuing dissolution will
> eliminate that advantage in one stroke.
>
> Several professional societies and federation of scientific societies have
> voiced their concerns to the NIH leadership. Their letters can be found
> here (some long URLs may break in half, please copy the whole link
> to your browser)
>
> smrb.od.nih.gov/dec7/pc/PublicComment14SMRB_NARRC_Let_Final.pdf
>
> www.abrf.org/other/Announcements/ABRF_TMAT_Letter.pdf
>
> www.faseb.org/Portals/0/PDFs/News_Room_PDFs/12.6.10 FASEB TMAT Letter.pdf
>
> I urge you to voice your concerns through the following comment site:
>
http://feedback.nih.gov/index.php/ncats/ncats-comments/>
> Please urge the professional societies of which you are a member to
> join the effort in voicing the concern against this initiative. I believe the
> scientific community has been given neither sufficient time nor information
> to consider and react to this swift decision.
>
>
>
> Teng-Leong Chew, Ph.D.
> Director, Cell Imaging Facility& Nikon Imaging Center
> Director for University Imaging Resources
> Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
> Chicago, IL 60611
>