Cancer Research Projects May Grow 25 Points From Federal Funds
More projects will be approved because the National Cancer Institute received a 2.9 percent budget increase to $5 billion for fiscal 2009, and $1.3 billion for 2009 and 2010 from the economic stimulus package, said John Niederhuber, the institutes director. The new grants will help universities recruit faculty and fill research jobs frozen in recent years.
The rise in research grants follows four years of a flat- lined budget for the cancer institute, which is one of 27 agencies within the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Niederhuber said. Even with a flat budget, inflation meant cancer-research funding lost ground every year, he said.
“Economic stimulus funds give us the chance to be visionary,” said Niederhuber in remarks at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Denver. Priorities will be to expand cancer genomics mapping, develop personalized medical care and translate tumor genetics discoveries into new drug targets, he said.
The expanded funding “allows scientists to spend more of their time doing science,” said Michael Seiden, president and chief executive of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, in a telephone interview today. Seiden added that funding up to 30 percent more grants means researchers wont need “to rewrite their grant two or three times” to attract funding.
The National Cancer Institute receives about 7,000 grant applications every year, and last year funded about 20 percent, or 1,400 of them. Starting this year, the payline, or cutoff between funded and unfunded grants, will be lowered to give money to more worthy ideas, the agency said.