The NIH Almanac
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
Mission | Important Events | Legislative Chronology | Director | Programs
Mission
The mission of NCATS is to catalyze the generation of innovative methods and technologies that will enhance the development, testing and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics across a wide range of human diseases and conditions.
Developing new diagnostics and therapeutics is a complex, costly and risk-laden endeavor. Less than one percent of compounds initially tested actually make it into a patient’s medicine cabinet. NIH recognizes that the process for translating scientific discoveries into new tools and treatments is ripe for innovation.
By improving this process, NCATS aims to make translational science more efficient, less expensive and less risky. In this way, NCATS complements—and does not compete with—the work of the private sector or the other NIH Institutes and Centers.
Important Events in NCATS History
2011—NCATS is established.
NCATS Legislative Chronology
December 23, 2011—President Obama signed into law P.L. 112-74, the Fiscal Year 2012 Consolidated Appropriations Act, enabling the NIH to establish NCATS.
NCATS Directors
| Name | In Office from | To |
|---|---|---|
| Thomas R. Insel, M.D. (Acting) | December 23, 2011 | Present |
Major Programs
NCATS unifies programs in three areas:
- Clinical and Translational Science Activities
- Clinical and Translational Science Awards, a national consortium of medical research institutions working to improve the way clinical and translational research is conducted nationwide
- Rare Diseases Research and Therapeutics
- Office of Rare Diseases Research, which coordinates and supports research on rare diseases
- Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases, a program to encourage and speed the development of new drugs for rare and neglected diseases
- Re-engineering Translational Sciences
- NIH Chemical Genomics Center, which provides researchers with access to the large-scale screening and chemistry capacity necessary to identify compounds that can be used as chemical probes to validate new therapeutic targets
- Bridging Interventional Development Gaps, which makes available critical preclinical resources needed for the development of new therapeutic agents
- Toxicology in the 21st Century, which is screening a collection of 10,000 compounds to identify potentially toxic disruptions in biological pathways and develop ways to predict toxicity more accurately
NCATS also will develop the Cures Acceleration Network, which will fund a variety of initiatives designed to address scientific and technical challenges that impede translational research.
Social Media Links