NIH-funded research has led to the development of life-changing medicines to treat diseases like diabetes, depression, Alzheimer’s, strokes, addiction, heart disease, AIDS, and the flu.
More than a quarter of all medicines and more than a third of all cancer medicines approved between 2001 and 2019 were invented by academic researchers.
Over the last four decades, more than 200 drugs and vaccines have been developed through partnerships between federally funded university research and private industry.
It's a researcher at the medical school of one America's leading research universities, Harvard, that discovered the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), a molecule that became the basis for the GLP-1 drug therapies that have revolutionized the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Joel Habener's initial 1970's discovery and years of follow-on research, along with that of many other scientists, has enabled the design of disease-altering therapies for type 2 diabetes, which affects nearly 400 million people worldwide, and obesity, estimated to affect about one billion globally.
America's leading research universities are also among the first to be investigating the possibilities that GLP-1 might hold for treating other medical problems.
When we needed it most, it was the decades-long, federally-funded commitment of leading research universities on the mRNA platform that put the United States in position to develop a COVID vaccine in record time. Leading research universities were at the forefront of battling the virus and continue their efforts to help the nation prepare for and prevent future pandemics.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) invests most of its nearly $48 billion budget in life-saving medical research for the American people-- and it conducts much of that research through America's leading research universities nationwide. Nearly 66 percent of all federally funded medical research for NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services is performed by America's leading research universities across the nation through competitive grants. And each year NIH awards almost 50,000 such grants overall to keep 300,000 medical researchers at more than 2,500 research universities, medical schools, and research institutions in every state hard at work on the next discoveries that can save lives and improve Americans' health.
Banner Photo Credit: Dr. Giselle Sholler with patient Ford Bartle at Penn State Health Children's Hospital - Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Infusion Clinic on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024.
