Money for health research hits wall: Scientists at UVA and nationwide worried

By Brian McNeill
Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: March 24, 2008

Five years ago, University of Virginia scientists Deborah Lannigan and Jeffrey Smith extracted a compound from a rare South American plant that turned out to be a promising new treatment for breast cancer.
Ever since, Lannigan has sought federal funding to further her research into the deadly disease that affects one of every eight women.

“It took us a long time to get funding,” Lannigan said. “I think ‘hellacious’ is a good word to describe the process.”

Lannigan was recently awarded a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to better understand how an enzyme called RSK - pronounced “risk” - fuels the growth of cancer cells. Smith and Lannigan’s drug, SL0101, attacks RSK and cuts off life support to the malignant cells.

Lannigan’s arduous five-year effort to obtain federal funding underscores an emerging problem facing medical scientists across the country.

Funding for NIH has remained stagnant over the past five years. As a result, researchers are finding it increasingly tough to win grants for cutting-edge research and many ongoing projects are being reduced in scope.

“The NIH budget has been flat and that poses a challenge for everybody,” said Dr. R. Ariel Gomez, the university’s vice president for research and graduate studies. “It’s important that the NIH budget is increased for the research health of the whole country, including UVa.”

A national study released this month found that NIH has essentially endured a cumulative 13 percent cut since 2003. With less grant funding available, competition among researchers has skyrocketed. Consequently, only one in 10 grant applications is being approved for funding upon its first submission. And grant applications that were rejected and then resubmitted are clogging the pipeline, frustrating young researchers such as Lannigan who must wait longer for the crucial cash to shake loose.

The 20-page report, titled “A Broken Pipeline: Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk,” was co-authored by Brown University; Duke University; Harvard University; Ohio State University; Partners Healthcare; the University of California, Los Angeles and Vanderbilt University. It profiles a dozen researchers similar to Lannigan and asserts that the lack of available NIH funding is placing the nation’s future health in jeopardy.

“When money is really tight, NIH is less willing to take risks on new research,” Lannigan said. “When you’re faced with something brand new, how do you know it’s going to pay off?”

President Bush’s proposed fiscal 2009 budget essentially keeps NIH funding at the same level. As its budget has not adjusted for inflation since 2003, the budget is effectively being reduced.

“It’s the worst financial situation in terms of federal funding that I’ve ever seen in 35 years,” said Tom Parsons, chairman of UVa’s microbiology department. “Even maintaining the status quo is in question. It’s serious.”

Christin Baker, spokeswoman for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said Bush has proposed to keep the majority of domestic spending items - such as NIH - at flat funding levels, with the exception of security expenditures.

“The budget holds most domestic spending in check,” Baker said. “We’re trying to balance the budget while also keeping the country safe.”

Since 2001, Baker added, Bush increased NIH by 43 percent. His proposed $29.3 billion budget for NIH in fiscal 2009 would still go far in promoting research, she said.

UVa’s share of NIH research dollars has stayed fairly level in recent years, climbing from $143 million in 2003 to $152 million in 2006. Last year, that figure was $182 million, but UVa officials said that it may be an anomaly brought about by the recent hiring of several “star” faculty members who drew major federal funding.

With federal funding staying mostly flat, UVa researchers have now been forced to find alternative sources of funding, such as nonprofit foundations and private donors. However, foundations tend to back researchers of only certain disciplines. And private financing rarely lasts as long as federally funded research projects do, said David Hudson, UVa’s associate vice president for research and graduate studies.

UVa is also relying on a $1 million internal fund that doles out $100,000 grants to UVa scientists who need temporary funding to keep their research projects running while waiting for federal funding.

The largest single expenditure in most research projects, Hudson said, is personnel costs. “If we don’t get grants approved, we could lose jobs,” he said. “If a researcher loses funding - even temporarily - you can lose valuable staff members that you can’t get back.”

Most of the higher-ranked private institutions that compete with UVa for the best faculty and students have substantially larger endowments, allowing them to more easily survive grim budget times, Hudson said. Losing key researchers because of a lack of funding, he said, would make it very difficult for UVa to rebound.

“If we can’t afford to pay for top players, it’s difficult for us to field the best team possible,” he said.

NIH funding is a major portion of UVa’s total amount of “sponsored research,” meaning all federal, state and private support for research. In 2006-07, UVa researchers received $332.9 million in total research awards, up from $277.3 million in 2002-03.

Both chambers of Congress are considering Bush’s budget proposal. After the budget bills are passed, then the appropriations committees are supposed to reconcile the two versions. Yet Congress has failed to reach an agreement on NIH funding for the past several years, said James Savage, a UVa politics professor and author of the book “Funding Science in America: Congress, Universities, and the Politics of the Academic Pork Barrel.”

Dan Scandling, spokesman for 10th District Rep. Frank R. Wolf, R-Fairfax County, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, said Wolf is interested in boosting medical research funding, but is skeptical that a bill would be approved anytime soon because of partisan disagreements.

“He stills talks about how, in the late ’90s, there was a concerted effort by the GOP to double NIH funding,” Scandling said. “He regularly talks about the need to fund research into things like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and diabetes. That’s critical. NIH needs to be funded. It should be a priority.”

Fifth District Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, who also serves on the Appropriations Committee, said he disagrees with Bush’s proposal to keep NIH funding flat and supports the allocation of more federal funds.

“I do not support a number of different provisions in the president’s budget,” Goode said in a written statement. “One item that I would like to see increased [is] funding for research at NIH, focused on diseases and illnesses that strike American citizens. I hope and expect that funding for NIH will be increased over the president’s proposal.”

UVa President John T. Casteen III has written at least two letters to members of Virginia’s congressional delegation about the issue, said Savage, who is also Casteen’s executive assistant for federal relations. “We would, of course, like to see more support from our delegation,” Savage said.

Though she now has federal funding, Lannigan continues to seek private donations to support her testing of the cancer therapy drug SL0101, which she calls “slowen-owen.”

“It’s all about the money,” she said.

The drug, derived from a shrub called forsteronia refracta, is in the pre-clinical trial phase and is being tested on rodents. Though things are moving forward, she reflects back on the five-year wait for federal funding and sees it as a frustrating process.

“The NIH system is terrific in a lot of ways, like the peer review process,” she said. “But it’s broken. And that’s because it’s being starved to death.”