From stem cell research to fighting cancer and combating autism, Barack Obama made investing in medical research a key part of his presidential campaign. Since taking office, Obama's administration has modestly boosted federal funding and begun to build on data-sharing initiatives created during the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

For the 2010 budget, the Obama administration sought a modest 2.1 percent increase in research funding for the National Institutes of Health, including $6 billion for cancer research and $141 million for research in the causes and treatments of autism. But the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or stimulus bill, was a windfall, including $1 billion for medical research within the Department of Veterans Affairs and $10 billion more for the NIH.

Patrick Clemins, director of the research and development budget and policy program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the gains for medical research in the 2010 budget were slight, but reversed the trend: After big increases in the mid 1990s and early 2000s, research funding had not been keeping up with inflation in recent years.

While he's still crunching the numbers from the $3 trillion omnibus spending bill that Congress passed in December 2009, Clemins said he expects funding for NIH research to be slightly higher than the $32 billion that Obama requested. That's about $662 million more than in 2009.
While the increase from 2009 to 2010 was "pretty small, you really have to take into effect the (Recovery Act), which was a huge .. for most of those agencies" in the NIH, Clemins said.

As for the efforts to better coordinate research, the NIH in 2009 set up a national online Web site and database, www.ResearchMatch.org, to match people with potential clinical trials around the nation.

The Obama administration also is building on what the NIH started several years ago, according to the NIH. In January 2009, for instance, the National Center for Research Resources, part of the NIH, awarded $22-million to a center based at the University of Southern California that helps coordinate the sharing of data by researchers across the country.

While strengthening research funding and improving coordination among researchers will require an ongoing commitment, the Obama administration clearly has taken steps toward those efforts. Therefore, this promise is In the Works.