Vaitukaitis vacates NCRR post, Alving will serve as interim director

Vaitukaitis vacates NCRR post, Alving will serve as interim director

At the end of March, Dr. Judy Vaitukaitis stepped down as director of the National Center of Research Resources (NCRR) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and assumed a new role as advisor to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, MD, on research support for the emergent area of complex, multidisciplinary, team research. A physician by training, Dr. Vaitukaitis became NCRR director in 1993. Prior to that time, she directed the General Clinical Research Centers Program (GCRC) within NCRR.

During Dr. Vaitukaitis’s 12-year tenure as director, NCRR's budget almost quadrupled and program areas expanded to include a broad range of cutting-edge research resources, state-of-the art technologies, and critical biological models of human disease. Examples include three national gene vector laboratories, new national resources for specialized animal models, and the Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) program (including both the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence [COBRE] and BRIN/InBRE Programs). The Extramural Research Infrastructure Program for construction or renovation of research facilities (C06 program) more than tripled in funding, and the Shared Instrumentation Program expanded to offer support for High End Instrumentation up to $2 million).

In her new position as Senior Advisor on Scientific Infrastructure and Resources, Dr. Vaitukaitis will advise NIH leadership about critical technologies and complex scientific infrastructure needed to advance biomedical research in the 21st century.

Barbara Alving, MD, deputy director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Director of the Women’s Health Initiative, will serve as NCRR acting director. Dr. Alving served as acting director at NHLBI from August 2003 until February of this year.