*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
*****

Dear Colleagues,

This is not imaging related, but it is a very grave news that will affect
many of us. I urge you to read on.

On Dec. 7, 2010, the Scientific Management Review Board (SMRB)
recommended that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) realign its
resources to establish a new Center devoted to advancing translational
sciences. The action came in response to NIH Director Francis Collins’s
charge to the SMRB to formulate and recommend a plan for achieving
optimal organization for therapeutic development within NIH.

Due to the 2006 NIH Reauthorization Act, which capped the number
of institute/Centers at the current number (27), the NIH cannot create a
new center without eliminating an existing institute/center. As a result,
the NIH has decided to dissolve the NCRR and reassign its programs 
and portfolios to other institutes/centers.

For more information:
http://feedback.nih.gov/index.php/ncats/intro-read-more/

Also, click on "up-to-date information" link on the page above.

It is a safe assumption that many American colleagues on this list have
benefitted immensely from the resources and programs of the NCRR,
especially the Shared Instrumentation Grants and monies that support
many comparative medicine centers.

This decision will greatly impact the abilities of core facilities to apply for
instrument grants. If the NCRR portfolio is to be divided and administered
by various individual institutes/centers, then our ability to bring together
investigators from different fields but with the same need (e.g., a confocal
or a flow cytometer) to apply for instrument grant will be immediately
crippled. This new initiative will also allow individual departments to
compete more successfully than facilities to obtain instruments due to
their tightly aligned scientific themes. This will become very wasteful for
the NIH very quickly as departments start duplicating instrumentation
(and the necessary technical staff) to run services currently shared by
many investigators supported by various NIH funds. The NCRR is a 
uniquely important source of scientific infrastructure whose investments
have always been in the spirit of sharing. The ensuing dissolution will
eliminate that advantage in one stroke.

Several professional societies and federation of scientific societies have
voiced their concerns to the NIH leadership. Their letters can be found 
here (some long URLs may break in half, please copy the whole link
to your browser)

smrb.od.nih.gov/dec7/pc/PublicComment14SMRB_NARRC_Let_Final.pdf

www.abrf.org/other/Announcements/ABRF_TMAT_Letter.pdf

www.faseb.org/Portals/0/PDFs/News_Room_PDFs/12.6.10 FASEB TMAT Letter.pdf

I urge you to voice your concerns through the following comment site:
http://feedback.nih.gov/index.php/ncats/ncats-comments/

Please urge the professional societies of which you are a member to
join the effort in voicing the concern against this initiative. I believe the
scientific community has been given neither sufficient time nor information 
to consider and react to this swift decision.



Teng-Leong Chew, Ph.D.
Director, Cell Imaging Facility & Nikon Imaging Center
Director for University Imaging Resources
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Chicago, IL 60611