Without sustainable federal investment in medical research, innovation in the field will be stunted say academic leaders. Colleagues from across the country join in their appeal to Congress.
New York medical school administrators join 17 others in a recent open letter in the Journal Science Translational Medicine. The letter says unstable funding for biomedical research drives investigators out of the country.
Jo Wiederhorn, president and CEO of the Associated Medical Schools of New York, says just like bridges and roads federal and state governments must invest in the infrastructure that drives medical innovation in the U.S.
Medical trials, for example, are located where they’re funded.
"If this research is being done elsewhere in the world, then the opportunities for our own citizens diminishes tremendously," Widerhorn said.
Wiederhorn says advancement in medicine comes through collaboration,.
"And there needs to be a partnership between the federal government, the state governments and the research institutions (the academic medical centers) themselves to push this agenda forward."
Based on a 2010 AMSNY study, every dollar of research funding that goes to New York Medical Schools shows a more than seven-fold return for the state’s economy.