Lack of NIH Leader Seen as Complicating Push for Federal Research Dollars

Washington — The National Institutes of Health has now been without a permanent director for about nine months, and concern over the delay may be growing among universities.

The unease was evident today when Mark O. Lively, the newly elected president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the nation’s largest coalition of biomedical-research groups, met with reporters here to lay out an agenda for his year in office.

The priority, said Mr. Lively, a professor of biochemistry at Wake Forest University, is ensuring a steady flow of federal research dollars to universities. The NIH is the single largest source of money for academic research in the United States, and the agency has been allocated $10.4-billion from the $787-billion economic-stimulus measure enacted this year by Congress.

That increase is welcome after several years of flat support for the NIH, Mr. Lively said. But advocates of university research now must lobby Congress and the Obama administration to ensure that the higher levels of federal spending don’t disappear after one year, he said.

One problem may turn out to be the lack of a permanent leader at the NIH following the departure last October of Elias A. Zerhouni, Mr. Lively said. Mr. Zerhouni’s deputy, Raynard S. Kington, has been acting director since then. Francis S. Collins, the scientist who headed the federal project to map the human genetic code, is still understood to be the lead candidate to succeed Mr. Zerhouni on a permanent basis, but it’s not clear what, if anything, is delaying the appointment, Mr. Lively said.

It may be possible to recognize only in hindsight, years from now, what the absence of a permanent NIH director may be costing universities in their efforts to lobby Congress for more money, Mr. Lively said. But the effect of losing Mr. Zerhouni, who led the agency for six years, is already clear, Mr. Lively said.

“We miss Elias,” he said. “He was tremendously persuasive.” —Paul Basken

Update (4:40 p.m.): The White House announced this afternoon that President Obama would nominate Francis S. Collins as the next director of the National Institutes of Health. Watch for a more-detailed report on the nomination in tomorrow’s Daily Report from The Chronicle.