The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009.  It is an unprecedented effort to jump-start our economy, create or save millions of jobs, and put a down payment on addressing long-neglected challenges so that our country can move forward and thrive in the 21st century.

We are very grateful for the monies that have been allocated to the NIH.  We intend to do our part to advance and accelerate the biomedical research agenda in this country by focusing on scientific opportunities and public health challenges.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) is working under an accelerated timetable to create a funding plan to meet the stimulus goals articulated in ARRA.  Our plan will strike an important balance between increasing the number of investigator-initiated research grants and a greater commitment to “signature” projects that will hopefully make significant scientific advances.

We have added new web pages to our web site at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/funding/recovery.html and are committed to keeping our NHLBI stakeholders up-to-date.  We will add new information as it is available regarding NHLBI ARRA efforts through the NIH, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Recovery.gov.

Thank you for your continued support of the NHLBI.  We welcome your comments and ideas (nhlbi.listens@nih.gov). I look forward to working with you.