WASHINGTON--In her first official appearance before Congress as National Institutes of Health director last month, Bernadine Healy delivered a gift to the scientific research community: a new $30 million awards program.
Healy told the House appropriations subcommittee headed by Rep. William Natcher (D-Ky.) that by the end of September, NIH hopes to have thrown a lifeline to several hundred investigators who just missed having their ideas funded and need money to keep their labs afloat until the next round of awards.
The new program will be called the James Shannon director's awards, according to Healy, in honor of the legendary figure who headed NIH for 13 years during its period of tremendous growth from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s.
It will be funded in part from a $20 million discretionary fund that Congress created this year for the NIH director, supplemented by a "tax" of not more than 1 ...
