A critical challenge will be to limit future destabilizing expansion of the number of PhD students and postdoc trainees. Because 75-80% of biomedical PhD students and postdocs now supported by NIH are funded by RO1 and other research funding, if/when research grant budget increase the number of PhD and postdoc “slots” would automatically expand--even if there is no expectation of comparable increases in demand for... more »

There is a critical challenge to retain highly trained basic and clinical scientists in the biomedical research enterprise and expediently promote their independence and capacity to produce innovative discoveries. There is a need to provide more funding opportunities for collaborative, team-science approaches to scientific investigation by interdisciplinary teams comprised of clinician scientists, basic researchers, and... more »

As long as funding remains at grossly inadequate levels, to distribute the research money more fairly, limit the total dollar amount any PI can receive. It should be a reasonably large number in order to fund multiple good ideas that are peer-evaluated, but small enough to allow more PIs to get funding.

Traditionally the Health Care model has meant that patients come to HCF for their care. Hospitals are increasingly overcrowded and also not always the best place to be due to the risk for nosocomial infections. Utilizing existing community resources to enhance the health both acute and chronic deserves exploration at the national level. Training paramedics to do chronic disease monitoring as well as as remotely work with... more »

Expanding the base of the program foci (e.g. including NCI in addition to the current HLBS).

Although the NCRR and NIGMS used to have a mechanism to train new generation of clinical & translational scientists, this program was stopped. Why?

What is the possibility of other institutes to come up with the priority of funding resources in this regard?

Training programs may consider a more green approach by producing easy to access on-line materials and resources to be shared with other training programs and trainees, with a common website repository where such information is archived.

Given the declining numbers of physician scientists, NHLBI should expand the portfolio of opportunities for junior faculty who may want to consider a career in research.

Funding and review mechanisms are essential resources that can facilitate or hinder innovative research to meet the NHLBI goals. These resources must be refocused to result in identification and funding of the type of innovative research being sought by NHLBI.
The opportunities for leveraging available NHLBI funds with other sources should be considered formally as a component of overall budget planning, not just on... more »

There is a need for sensible policies that require collection and scientific analysis of credible data relating to the biomedical workforce. The data currently available are weak – for example no one knows, to a factor of 2X, the actual number of postdocs in the United States. The absence of credible human resource and labor market data on the biomedical research workforce is very surprising. NIH could contribute greatly... more »

Although sickle cell was first described more than 100 years ago and more than 100,000 individuals in the US are living with sickle cell disease, healthcare providers still lack basic knowledge of the key components in providing care for individuals with sickle cell. This often leads to poor health outcomes including stigmatization of patients with sickle cell seeking care. Evidenced-based curriculum should be available... more »

What is the best way to train the public to recognize sudden cardiac arrest, perform CPR and utilize an AED?

No physician or hospital has an active data management system at point of care. coding is done by third parties and not the diagnosing physician. The Test with MED-O-CARD shows that an integrated Diagnostic/Medication Algorithm allows a patient and his physicians to run and view instant data analytic. This system can be expanded scientifically without pushing the patient again aside. Patient inclusion will increase quality... more »

NIH is already facing a challenge in increasing the number and viability of researchers of color. Obesity research in black (or other high risk minority) populations can be used to explore how research training programs that focus on specific issues of importance to populations of color might contribute to the recruitment and success of ethnic minority researchers in the NIH system.

The current generation of heart,lung, and blood investigators are not equipped with competitive training needed to approach, design, and test appropriately small molecule therapeutics that may move through the FDA pipeline. Appropriate in silico ligan or structure based design, HTS, design of Pd/Pk models, "go-no-go" branchpoints in drug development, screening approaches, and drug target validation are issues that are... more »