FY 2014 funding for the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) would remain essentially even with the FY 2012 budget under the request the Obama Administration sent to Congress.
FY 2012 funding for NIBIB was $337.7 million. The current budget – FY 2013 – is approximately equal to this amount, less a mandated reduction of about 5.0 percent required by sequestration. The FY 2014 request is $338.9 million, an increase of $1.2 million or 0.4 percent over FY 2012.
Funding for the National Institutes of Health, of which NIBIB is a part, would increase by 1.5 percent or $471.0 million in FY 2014 as compared to FY 2012.
Full details about the NIBIB request are available in a 27-page budget document. NIBIB expects that 30 more research grants would be funded if this request is approved, rising from 578 grants in FY 2012 to 608 in FY 2014. The Institute would fund 34 research centers, unchanged from FY 2012. The stipend paid to doctoral trainees would increase by 2.0 percent in FY 2014; the number of trainees would decline. The budget for R&D contracts would increase by almost $3.0 million, the document stating: “A large portion of this increase is due to the resumption in funding of the Quantitative Imaging Biomarkers Alliance contract in FY 2013 and FY 2014.”
Of note in the budget document:
“NIBIB funding policies give special consideration to applications that bridge and integrate the life and physical sciences, and also focus on enhancing support for new investigators.”
The Director’s Overview explains:
“The convergence of physical and engineering sciences with medicine and life sciences will advance basic research and medical care in many ways. Already, improved targeting tools allow researchers to precisely deliver stem cells to specific tissues. Better chemistry allows vaccines to remain stable longer and without refrigeration. Application of advanced fluid dynamics to blood flow is providing a new understanding of the mechanics of blood clot formation. Advances in nanotechnology are providing new ways to deliver medications. High throughput engineering techniques are being applied to analysis of single cells, in hopes of revealing disease mechanisms at the cellular level. Engineering new approaches to image-sharing is redefining the way that medical images are shared between medical centers.”