"We are now damaging the infrastructure, and this will certainly delay relief from the cancer burden," Harvard researcher Joan S. Brugge told a Senate hearing on March 19. The researcher's sister died of a brain tumor when Brugge was in college. Brugge is now chair of Harvard Medical School's Cell Biology Department. Photo John Harrington for Harvard Medical School |
Brugge, colleagues urge Senate to increase NIH fundingMarch 19, 2007By B.D. Colen
Testifying Monday afternoon (March 19) before a U.S. Senate committee hearing on National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, Harvard Medical School Cell Biology Department Chair Joan S. Brugge warned that "four years of flat [NIH] funding have had a devastating impact on the trajectory of cancer research," threatening "the rapid progress in developing effective and less toxic treatments for the myriad different cancers." Noting that decades of NIH funding have brought researchers into a new age of cancer research and treatment in which "we now have multiple examples of effective treatments that target the molecular alterations of specific subsets of tumors," Brugge told members of the Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., she fears "we are losing the momentum and the dedicated careers that were fueled by the previous federal investment. "We are now damaging the infrastructure, and this will certainly delay relief from the cancer burden," testified the HMS researcher whose sister died of a brain tumor when Brugge was in college. |
