National Institutes of Health
Soon after becoming the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in May 2002, Zerhouni convened a series of meetings to chart a "Roadmap for Medical Research" in the 21st century. The purpose was to identify major opportunities and gaps in biomedical research that no single Institute at NIH could tackle alone, but that the agency as a whole must address to make the biggest impact on the progress of medical research. Developed with input from meetings with more than 300 nationally recognized leaders in academia, industry, government, and the public, the NIH Roadmap provided a framework of priorities that the NIH as a whole must address in order to optimize its entire research portfolio. The NIH Roadmap identified the most compelling opportunities in three main areas: new pathways to discovery, research teams of the future, and re-engineering the clinical research enterprise. Roadmap programs were initially funded by a 1 percent contribution from each of the NIH ICs. Zerhouni subsequently created the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI) to lead ongoing Roadmap efforts and to create the Research, Condition, and Disease Categorization Process (RCDC), an online system which reports NIH research investments.
Under Dr. Zerhouni's leadership, Congress responded to the need for NIH to develop innovative and cross-cutting programs by authorizing and funding the NIH Common Fund within the Office of the Director. The NIH Reform Act of 2006 NIH Reform Act of 2006 codified the NIH Common Fund to support cross-cutting programs that involve the participation of at least two of NIH's 27 Institutes and Centers (ICs) or would otherwise benefit from strategic planning and coordination. The Reform Act also codified OPASI by creating the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI). To date, the Common Fund has been used to support a series of short-term, exceptionally high impact, trans-NIH programs, including the NIH Pioneer and New Innovator awards.
During his tenure at NIH, Dr. Zerhouni also led the effor to promote global health and global research. In the spring of 2008, speaking to Medline Plus, he said, "Diseases know no borders anymore. SARS spread through the world in a matter of days. The dangers of fast-moving infectious diseases require us to have a global vision. Without a worldwide network of well trained, qualified scientific collaborators, we won't have the radar to protect the American public from emerging and re-emerging infections, like pandemic flu. That's why it was very important to increase our presence around the world." His accomplishments at the NIH also included the establishment of a research program into the problem of widespread obesity, and supporting the reduction of healthcare disparities. In April 2006, he told a Congressional subcommittee, "We can now clearly envision an era when the treatment paradigm of medicine will increasingly become more predictive, personalized and preemptive. We will strike disease before it strikes us with the hope of greatly reducing overall costs to society." During his NIH tenure, Zerhouni also created the Neuroscience Blueprint, a cooperative effort among 16 NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices that support neuroscience research. Zerhouni also led major efforts to revise aspects of the NIH peer review system and implement public access to publications arising from NIH funded research.
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