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(Circulation. 2002;105:400.)
© 2002 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorials

Strengthening Commitment to Clinical Research

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Specialized Centers of Research Program

Claude Lenfant, MD

From the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Bethesda, Md.

Correspondence to Claude Lenfant, MD, Director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Dept of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD 20892.

Key Words: Editorials • trials • research • funding

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) established its pioneering Specialized Centers of Research (SCOR) program 30 years ago to facilitate the translation of basic science research to clinical practice—a goal that is very much in keeping with our mission of harnessing scientific endeavor to improve the health of the nation. The Institute now funds SCOR programs in 14 scientific areas, comprising 69 individual awards.

As is the case with our other program mechanisms, we continue to review, debate, and where necessary, amend our SCOR policies to ensure that the program addresses public health needs and capitalizes on scientific opportunities. The last major change in the SCOR program was made 8 years ago (see Lenfant C. The NHLBI centers program: the sun also rises. Circulation. 1993;88:3). At that time, we sought to preserve and maintain the "specialness" of these Institute-solicited programs by announcing that each would "sunset" after 10 years unless a thorough evaluation of research needs and opportunities uncovered extraordinarily compelling reasons to continue a specific SCOR program. Since that time, old SCORs have ended and new ones have been created to take their place.

Most recently, a couple of SCOR programs were evaluated according to the terms of this "sunset" provision by multidisciplinary teams of experts from the extramural community. The evaluators were unanimous in their praise for the scientific productivity of the SCORs. They were, however, equally uniform in their recognition that most of the progress had occurred in the basic science arena, that little . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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