Must reads

• An April 23, 2014 USA Today article reported on the impact of budget cuts at the National Institutes of Health. According to the article, "Budget pressures now force the National Institutes of Health to reject half of worthwhile research proposals, putting scientific progress at risk and leading many of the USA's brightest minds to consider careers overseas, says NIH director Francis Collins…The NIH once funded one in three research proposals. For the past 10 years, NIH has had enough to fund only one in six, although the quality of the research is as high as ever, Collins says."
• An April 23, 2014 UT San Diego opinion piece by Hudson Freeze underscored the importance of federally funded research to combat diseases like Alzheimer's. According to Freeze, "New cures for devastating diseases and exciting advances in medicine are all rooted in federally funded basic research. The leading agency responsible for funding these discoveries and innovations is the National Institutes of Health (NIH)… Just this year, UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers were part of a team of scientists who discovered that they can block accumulation of key neurotoxic peptides linked to Alzheimer’s disease by “erasing” the gene encoding cathepsin B or by reducing its effect with an enzyme inhibitor. Even more exciting, this potential drug is safe for use in humans…Our leaders in Congress must make sure that we keep pace with foreign competition. And make no mistake, it is substantial, formidable and unrelenting. Four members of San Diego County’s delegation — Reps. Susan Davis, D-San Diego; Duncan D. Hunter, R-Alpine; Scott Peters, D-San Diego; Juan Vargas, D-San Diego — locked arms when they supported increased funding for the NIH. Each signed a letter to the House Appropriations Committee requesting $32 billion for NIH in fiscal 2015. It would begin to enable U.S. researchers to keep pace with rapidly expanding opportunities." Hudson Freeze is vice-president elect of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and professor and director of the Human Genetics Program, Sanford Children’s Health Research Center at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute.
• An April 23, 2014 Vegas Seven article profiled Larry Ruvo and the impact his father's Alzheimer's had on establishing the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. According to Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, "The science has now progressed to a point where we think we have drugs that do intervene in the basic biology of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. But the only way to know whether those drugs work is to give them to patients who have these diseases. We will never know if a drug works unless patients come and allow themselves to be part of this clinical-trial process."