About the National Institutes of Health

Begun as the one-room Laboratory of Hygiene in 1887, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) today is one of the world’s foremost medical research centers and the federal focal point for health research in the United States.

Mission and Goals

The NIH mission is science in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the burdens of illness and disability. The goals of the agency are to

• foster fundamental creative discoveries, innovative research strategies, and their applications as a basis for advancing significantly the nation’s capacity to protect and improve health;
• develop, maintain, and renew scientific resources—both human and physical—that will ensure the nation’s ability to prevent disease;
• expand the knowledge base in medical and associated sciences in order to enhance the nation’s economic well-being and ensure a continued high return on the public investment in research; and
• exemplify and promote the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility in the conduct of science.

NIH works toward meeting those goals by providing leadership, direction, and grant support to programs designed to improve the health of the nation through research in the

• causes, diagnosis, prevention, and cure of human diseases;
• processes of human growth and development;
• biological effects of environmental contaminants;
• understanding of mental, addictive, and physical disorders; and
• collection, dissemination, and exchange of information in medicine and health, including the development and support of medical libraries and the training of medical librarians and other health information specialists.

Organization

Composed of 27 separate institutes and centers, NIH is one of eight health agencies of the Public Health Service within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH encompasses 75 buildings on more than 300 acres in Bethesda, Md., as well as facilities at several other sites in the United States. The NIH budget has grown from about $300 in 1887 to more than $27.8 billion in 2004.

Research Programs

One of NIH’s principal concerns is to invest wisely the tax dollars entrusted to it for the support and conduct of this research. Approximately 82 percent of the investment is made through grants and contracts supporting research and training in more than 2,000 research institutions throughout the United States and abroad. In fact, NIH grantees are located in every state in the country. These grants and contracts make up the NIH Extramural Research Program.

Approximately 10 percent of the budget goes to NIH’s Intramural Research Programs, the more than 2,000 projects conducted mainly in its own laboratories. These projects are central to the NIH scientific effort. First-rate intramural scientists collaborate with one another regardless of institute affiliation or scientific discipline and have the intellectual freedom to pursue their research leads in NIH’s own laboratories.

These explorations range from basic biology to behavioral research, to studies on treatment of major diseases.

Grant-Making Process

The grant-making process begins with an idea that an individual scientist describes in a written application for a research grant. The project might be small, or it might involve millions of dollars. The project might become useful immediately as a diagnostic test or new treatment, or it might involve studies of basic biological processes whose clinical value may not be apparent for many years.

Each research grant application undergoes peer review. A panel of scientific experts, primarily from outside the government, who are active and productive researchers in the biomedical sciences, first evaluates the scientific merit of the application. Then, a national advisory council or board, composed of eminent scientists as well as members of the public who are interested in health issues or the biomedical sciences, determines the project’s overall merit and priority in advancing the research agenda of the particular NIH funding institutes.

About 38,500 research and training applications are reviewed annually through the NIH peer-review system. At any given time, NIH supports 35,000 grants in universities, medical schools, and other research and research training institutions, both nationally and internationally.

NIH Nobelists

The roster of people who have conducted NIH research or who have received NIH support over the years includes some of the world’s most illustrious scientists and physicians. Among them are 115 winners of Nobel Prizes for achievements as diverse as deciphering the genetic code and identifying the causes of hepatitis.

Five Nobelists made their prize-winning discoveries in NIH laboratories. You can learn more about Nobelists who have received NIH support at http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/nobel/ index.htm.

Impact on the Nation’s Health

Through its research, NIH has played a major role in making possible many achievements over the past few decades, including

• Mortality from heart disease, the number one killer in the United States, dropped by 36 percent between 1977 and 1999.
• Improved treatments and detection methods increased the relative five-year survival rate for people with cancer to 60 percent.
• With effective medications and psychotherapy, the 19 million Americans who suffer from depression can now look forward to a better, more productive future.
• Vaccines are now available that protect against infectious diseases that once killed and disabled millions of children and adults.
• In 1990, NIH researchers performed the first trial of gene therapy in humans. Scientists are increasingly able to locate, identify, and describe the functions of many of the genes in the human genome. The ultimate goal is to develop screening tools and gene therapies for the general population for cancer and many other diseases.