State hopes of stimulating the economy with biomedical developments will get a strong boost next week by a visiting team of about 17 National Institutes of Health officials. Federal health agency to discuss
opportunities in isle researchBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.comThey will be here Nov. 7-9 to explore opportunities to increase the agency's funding in Hawaii for biomedical and behavioral research and research training.
The program is an outgrowth of an National Institutes of Health initiative three years ago to encourage more research by the states, said Douglas Yee, first vice president of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and vice president of the American Lung Association.
He was one of 20 lay people named nationally to the agency's Council of Public Representatives to make recommendations "to broaden the appeal in terms of public interest."
A study of research grants by the advisory group showed the average state was getting $70 million a year from the agency's annual $20 billion budget, Yee said.
Hawaii, with a total of $31 million, was one of 23 states receiving less than the average.
Because of the findings and council recommendations, the National Institutes of Health began sending teams to various locations to encourage and provide assistance for research opportunities, Yee said.
Among those coming here will be:
>> Dr. Yvonne Thompson Maddox, the National Institutes of Health acting deputy director and co-chairwoman of the Working Group on Health Disparities. She recently received an award from President Bush for her work.
>> Dr. Alan Guttmacher, senior clinical adviser to the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.
>> Dr. Stephen Straus, director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He will meet with Dr. Edwin Cadman, dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii, which is starting a complementary medicine department.
The National Institutes of Health experts will discuss major health research, policy and practice issues at a public event, "Challenges and Opportunities in the Century of Biology," from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Nov. 9 at the Keone Auditorium, Jefferson Hall, East-West Center.
They also will speak during the week at various Rotary Club meetings. Guttmacher will talk to Iolani and Punahou School science students in the Iolani amphitheater. Straus will visit the North Hawaii Community Hospital in Kamuela on the Big Island en route to Honolulu.
"We're going to go the whole nine yards," Yee said, "from people that got NIH grants down to high school students."
He said about 300 people are expected to attend a workshop sponsored by the UH Nov. 7-8 at the East-West Center for scientists, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and grants administrators.
The community colleges, Hawaii Pacific University, Brigham Young University and Chaminade University are urged to get involved, he said.
Edward Laws, UH interim vice chancellor for research and graduate education, noted these facts about the NIH:
>> It is composed of 25 distinct institutes and centers and spends 80 to 85 percent of its annual budget to support biomedical and behavioral research and training at more than 1,700 universities, research institutions and medical centers.
>> At any one time, it supports 35,000 grants in biomedical sciences, nursing, behavioral, sciences, chemistry, engineering, information and computer sciences and others.
Laws said: "The upcoming workshops are an excellent opportunity to increase our understanding of this substantial research funding source and enable our researchers to develop more competitive grant proposals."