Appoint an NIH Director Who Will Make Cures for Patients a Top Priority

For the past 6 years, the NIH road map declared bench-to-bedside research a priority and vowed to reward risk-taking, innovative studies, not the same old incremental research that has produced too few cures for diseases. 

Unfortunately, nothing has changed during that time. 

The problems inherent in the current system for funding medical research keep cures and treatments from reaching patients. 

We need a director of the NIH that will push back at the current medical research system and who will make translational research a priority.