Nordic track: NIH dysfunction and my Helsinki recruitment.

Abstract

National Institutes of Health aims to prioritize groundbreaking work that challenges existing views with rigor and reproducibility, and shows potential for translation. Increasingly, however, reviewers penalize applicants for novelty, critique of dogma, and for having work translated, while program officers are now guided to refuse review of proposals on forbidden topics. These practices have the potential to substantively degrade U.S. biomedical progress and played a role in my laboratory's move to Europe.