Karen Duff, an Alzheimer's disease researcher at Columbia University in New York, recently submitted three grant applications to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the covering letters, she requested that they not be directed into the pool of applications competing for money from the National Institute on Aging (NIA).

"I don't put any grants into NIA now because their funding line is so low it's almost impossible to get funded," says Duff.

Duff's situation reflects a crisis that is gripping researchers who are funded by the US$1.1‑billion ageing institute in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2010, a researcher submitting a grant application for any single deadline had only an 8% chance of winning funding. That number may soon dip even lower as grants tied to economic-stimulus funding begin to expire and a climate of austerity descends on the United States.

The dismal odds of winning an NIA-funded grant "threaten the viability of ageing research" says Richard Hodes, the NIA's director. "If we are less able to fund research — or are perceived to be less able — that will actually drive young and emerging investigators to fields other than ageing. That would be a catastrophe at a time when such research is critically important."

Although the funding situation is tight all around for NIH-supported investigators, the NIA is in an exceptional predicament. In recent years, it has made big commitments to costly clinical trials and large group projects, even as both the number and the average cost of investigator-initiated grants submitted to the institute have surged. Responding last month to a deluge of concern from researchers, Hodes posted an open letter to the NIA-funded community. "We at NIA recognize and empathize with the struggle that our constrained funding creates for the research community," he wrote. "It is vital that we do everything we can to sustain the momentum of investigator-generated research in this successful and vibrant field."

Advocates for research into Alzheimer's disease are adding to the chorus, noting that the toll of the condition will rise drastically with the greying of the global population. The NIA funds nearly three-quarters of the NIH's $469-million investment in Alzheimer's disease.

To read the full story please follow this link: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101109/full/468148a.html