---
title: "National Institutes of Health"
chunk: 3/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:34:55.439659+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

1908: George W. McCoy's discovery that rodents were a reservoir of bubonic plague.
1911: George W. McCoy, Charles W. Chapin, William B. Wherry, and B. H. Lamb described the previously unknown tularemia.
1924: Roscoe R. Spencer and Ralph R. Parker developed a vaccine against Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
1930: Sanford M. Rosenthal developed a treatment for mercury poisoning used widely before the development of dimercaptoethanol.
1943: Wilton R. Earle pioneered the cell culture process and published a paper describing the production of malignancy in vitro, Katherine K. Sanford developed the first clone from an isolated cancer cell, and Virginia J. Evans devised a medium that supported growth of cells in vitro.
1940s–1950s: Bernard Horecker and colleagues described the pentose phosphate pathway.
1950s: Julius Axelrod discovered a new class of enzymes, cytochrome P450 monooxygenases, a fundamental of drug metabolism.
1950: Earl Stadtman discovered phosphotransacetylose, elucidating the role of acetyl CoA in fatty acid metabolism.
1960s: Discovered the first human slow virus disease, kuru, which is a degenerative, fatal infection of the central nervous system. This discovery of a new mechanism for infectious diseases revolutionized thinking in microbiology and neurology.
1960s: Defined the mechanisms that regulate noradrenaline, one of the most important neurotransmitters in the brain.
1960s: Developed the first licensed rubella vaccine and the first test for rubella antibodies for large scale testing.
1960s: Developed an effective combination drug regimen for Hodgkin's lymphoma.
1960s: Discovery that tooth decay is caused by bacteria.
1970s: Developed the assay for human chorionic gonadotropin that evolved into the home pregnancy tests.
1970s: Described the hormonal cycle involved in menstruation.
1980s: Determined the complete structure of the IgE receptor that is involved in allergic reactions.
1990s: Hari Reddi's identification and purification of bone morphogenetic proteins
1990s: First trial of gene therapy in humans.

==== NIH Toolbox ====
In September 2006, the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research started a contract for the NIH Toolbox for the Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function to develop a set of state-of-the-art measurement tools to enhance collection of data in large cohort studies. Scientists from more than 100 institutions nationwide contributed. In September 2012, the NIH Toolbox was rolled out to the research community. NIH Toolbox assessments are based, where possible, on Item Response Theory and adapted for testing by computer.

==== Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes ====
NIH sponsors the Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP), a repository of information produced by studies investigating the interaction of genotype and phenotype. The information includes phenotypes, molecular assay data, analyses and documents. Summary-level data is available to the general public whereas the individual-level data is accessible to researchers. According to the City Journal NIH denies access to such attributes as intelligence, education and health on the grounds that studying their genetic basis would be stigmatizing.

==== Coronavirus vaccine ====
The NIH partnered with Moderna in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to develop a vaccine. The final phase of testing began on July 27 with up to 30,000 volunteers assigned to one of two groups—one receiving the mRNA-1273 vaccine and the other receiving salt water injections—and continued until there had been approximately 100 cases of COVID-19 among the participants. In 2021, the NIH contributed $4,395,399 towards the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) program.

==== Grant to EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan Institute for studying bat coronaviruses ====

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NIH-funded EcoHealth Alliance has been the subject of controversy and increased scrutiny due to its ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV)—which has been at the center of speculation since early 2020 that SARS-CoV-2 may have escaped in a lab incident. Between 2014 and 2019, NIH awarded approximately $3.7 million in grant funding to EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit organization focused on global health and infectious disease research. A portion of this funding, around $600,000, was subcontracted to WIV in China as part of a project titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence." The project aimed to study bat coronaviruses and assess their potential to infect humans. The research at WIV included the creation of chimeric viruses, which combined genetic material from different bat coronaviruses to evaluate their ability to infect human cells. In documents released in 2021, including NIH correspondence with Congress, it was disclosed that one of these modified viruses resulted in an "unexpected outcome," where the virus became more infectious in humanized mice. The NIH maintained that this outcome was not the intended goal of the research and did not violate the terms of the grant, though critics raised concerns about potential gain-of-function research. Under political pressure, the NIH withdrew funding to EcoHealth Alliance in July 2020. In 2023, HHS barred WIV from receiving U.S. government funding for a decade, citing non-compliance with safety and reporting standards.

==== NIH Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee ====
On February 13, 2012, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a new group of individuals assigned to research pain. This committee is composed of researchers from different organizations and will focus to "coordinate pain research activities across the federal government with the goals of stimulating pain research collaboration… and providing an important avenue for public involvement" ("Members of new", 2012). With a committee such as this research will not be conducted by each individual organization or person but instead a collaborating group which will increase the information available. With this hopefully more pain management will be available including techniques for those with arthritis. In 2020 Beth Darnall, American scientist and pain psychologist, was appointed as scientific member of the group.

== Funding ==

=== Budget and politics ===