"These awards will provide exciting new opportunities for experienced scientists to investigate fundamental questions related to CAM," said Margaret A. Chesney, Ph.D., NCCAM Deputy Director. "The Centers of Excellence will help us better understand the mechanisms of action of several CAM modalities, a step that is critical to further research and, ultimately, to integration into prevention and treatment."

The Centers of Excellence initiative is one of three new NCCAM research center programs. They were implemented following the review of the NCCAM centers program by an expert panel in 2002. The panel reviewed the original CAM centers that were established shortly after creation of NCCAM in 1999. Based on the lessons learned from these first centers, and in response to the evolving opportunities and challenges in CAM research, the expert panel recommended a more diverse platform of approaches to support research centers and a sharpened focus on their pursuit of original science. In response to these recommendations, NCCAM designed the following three new programs to build its next generation of research centers:

• Centers of Excellence for Research on CAM (CERC) for established research organizations;
• Developmental Centers for Research on CAM (DCRC) specifically for CAM institutions; and
• Planning Grants for International Centers for Research on CAM (PICRC) to stimulate U.S.-international research partnerships.

Announcements of awards for the latter two new programs will be made separately.

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Contact: NCCAM Press Office
301-496-7790
NIH/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine
29-Oct-2003