I am popping up from my mountain of R01 drafts to bring attention to an important NIH news release. Yesterday, NIH announced it has devoted over $10 million in supplemental funding for 82 grantees to explore sex differences in their clinical and pre-clinical research.
The news release states, “These awards are the latest round of funding in a program described in a May 2014 Nature commentary by [Janine Austin Clayton, M.D., NIH associate director for women’s health research] and NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. This commentary informed NIH grantees and other stakeholders of the agency’s intent to develop policies that will require applicants to address the influence of sex in the design and analysis of biomedical research with animals and cells.”
The news release states that the goal of the supplements is to serve as “…a catalyst for considering sex as a fundamental variable in research.”
NIH began this program in FY13, initially funding 50 supplements ($4.6 million total.) The initiative has been led by the Office of Research on Women’s Health. Most of the NIH ICs have funded supplements since the inception of the program.
Historically, medical research has been conducted predominantly on white male subjects. NIH has made efforts to expand the scope of clinical research to include both sexes and to represent multiple races and ethnicities. Grantees who want to succeed in the NIH arena would be wise to incorporate such variables into current and future studies.
