Obama: Grants push biomed research, jobs

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Grants totaling $5 billion pack a one-two punch by providing funding for cutting-edge medical research and jobs, U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday.

The 12,000-plus grants, announced during a visit to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., are part of an overall $100 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act allocation in science and technology, Obama said.

"I've long said, the goal of the Recovery Act was not to create make-work jobs, but jobs making a difference for our future," Obama said. "There is no better example than the jobs we will produce or preserve through the grants we are announcing this morning."

He said the awards to medical and educational facilities across the country represent the "single largest boost" to biomedical research in history and will help "unlock treatments to diseases that have long plagued humanity, to save and enrich the lives of people all over the world."

By creating new programs, such as Challenge grants, Grand Opportunity grants and Signature Initiatives, NIH is funding innovative research throughout the nation, Obama said. the awards support the range of medical research, from basic research to clinical and translational studies in areas such as heart disease, autism, HIV-AIDS, H1N1 flu, the Human Genome project and cancer.

"We can only imagine the new discoveries that will flow from the investments we make today," he said.