Abstract:
This week's news from the U.S. National Institutes of Health might have been underplayed a bit. The NIH's new roadmap has been called an enabler of "personalized medicine," but it seems to be a bit more than that phrase implies (i.e. designer health care for the rich). A "molecular library," new organizational structure and streamlined drug discovery process represent an acknowledgment by the NIH that the current system is cumbersome and so ... well, 20th century.