The contribution of each research group
is like one piece of colored glass in a stained glass window.
Viewed together, these colorful pieces form a radiant picture
of our understanding of living systems.
Photo: Donovan Marks for National Cathedral |
Many scientists
across the country are united by one chief desire -- to improve
our understanding of how life works. Whether they gaze at or grind
up, create or calculate, model or manipulate, if their work sheds
light on living systems, it may well receive financial support from
the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).
NIGMS is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency
of the United States Government that is one of the world's leading
supporters of biomedical research. As the "General" in
its name implies, NIGMS has broad interests. It funds basic research
in cell biology, structural biology, genetics, chemistry, pharmacology,
and many other fields. This work teaches us about the molecules,
cells, and tissues that form all living creatures. It helps us understand
-- and possibly find new ways to treat -- diseases caused by malfunctions
in these biological building blocks. The Institute also supports
training programs that provide the most critical element of good
research: well-prepared scientists.
Because the NIGMS mission is so wide-ranging,
the Institute has one of the largest budgets of all the NIH components.
In 2002, the NIGMS budget is over $1.7 billion, and it supports
the research of more than 3,000 scientists at universities, medical
schools, hospitals, and other research institutions.
NIGMS-funded work has yielded many scientific
breakthroughs and contributed substantially to an explosion of progress
in biomedical research. Many NIGMS grantees are at the forefront
of their fields, and a number have received the Nobel Prize and
other high scientific honors.
Supporting and contributing to the work of these
leaders are legions of collaborators, postdoctoral fellows, and
students. We are not able to include the names of all of those who
contributed to the advances featured in this booklet. But without
question, today's scientific research would not be possible without
the ideas, advice, labor, supplies, and tools of such coworkers.
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