Clinical research facilities grants of the National Institutes of Health

The establishment of a program of grants to create specialized facilities in support of clinical investigation of the highest quality has been widely recognized as an important and necessary step in the improvement and intensification of medical research. Such a program is being developed by the National Institutes of Health in response to a specific mandate by Congress and a 1960 appropriation of $3,000,000 for this purpose. Although the program is in its first stages, it is already evident that it will provide a means not only of enhancing the quality of research applied to patients but also of bringing much more rapidly to those afflicted by disease the accomplishments of sound laboratory research. The prompt response and intense interest of medical centers and institutions with respect to this new program shows that (1) clinical research has hitherto been haltingly and inadequately pursued for a lack of adequate means to