Perspectives Funding mechanisms and program management at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: confronting new challenges and exploring new opportunities

tutes of Health (NIH) budget appropria-tion has lost purchasing power, with ero-sion of the benefits of the doubling of the budget less than a decade ago. For the first time in 40 years, the NIH appropria-tion in fiscal year 2011 was 1 % less than in the previous year. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has been closely managing its funds to protect its core functions: support and conduct of research, and training of bio-medical research scientists. Rigorous evaluations of funding mechanisms, man-agement of clinical studies, set-aside pro-grams and funding guidelines are de-signed to help the Institute, in consultation with its advisory council, to minimize the long-term impact of extreme resource limi-tations on the advance and conduct of science. This report describes some re-cent actions taken by the NHLBI to maxi-mize support for investigator-initiated re-search, maintain a balanced portfolio, and provide as much support as possible for established and early-stage investiga-tors. (Blood. 2011;118(20):5380-5382