Director's Messages

As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly evolves, NCATS is providing maximum flexibility to address funding, reporting and deadline issues for grantees, and harnessing the might of the CTSA Program, NTU program and more to help address the pandemic.​

The Director of NCATS shares how an unexpected exchange helped spur the creation of the NCATS Pharmaceutical Collection, a compilation of every drug approved for human use by major regulatory agencies worldwide.

Christopher P. Austin, M.D., shares how his encounter with an end-stage ALS patient shaped his understanding of the personal and public health benefits of translating scientific discoveries into new treatments for people with rare diseases

Christopher P. Austin, M.D., looks back on an exciting year of accomplishments: “2019 was a remarkable year for NCATS, and I want to start by thanking all of you—our collaborators, partners, scientists, physicians, patients, regulators—who worked so closely with us to make this common vision we have of translational science come true in some really meaningful ways.”

Christopher P. Austin, M.D., highlights NCATS Day 2019, and how this annual meeting supports NCATS’ mission to establish the scientific principles of translation so that more treatments get to more patients more quickly.

Christopher P. Austin, M.D., provides an update on the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM Initiative, or NIH HEAL InitiativeSM, highlighting $945 million in support of research projects across the country to address the national opioid crisis.

Christopher P. Austin, M.D., asks stakeholders for input to strengthen the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program. The deadline to respond to the Request for Information is October 25.

Christopher P. Austin, M.D., examines the significance of patient engagement initiatives like “Ask an Astronaut: Biomedical Science Edition” in translational science. The program teaches residents at The Children’s Inn about NIH research in space and on Earth.

When I was a boy, I was captivated by space exploration. On July 20, 1969, along with millions of others around the world, I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing live on our fuzzy black-and-white television and heard Neil Armstrong’s iconic pronouncement of "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

I struggled in college and medical school because the path I wanted to follow didn’t exist. Neuroscience, data science, bioinformatics and many other fields we have today had yet to be born. It’s often true that the fields you train in may not be the ones in which you ultimately work. This adage certainly applies to translational science, which can trace its birthday to December 23, 2011—the date NCATS was created.