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The Conversation USA

How the NIH became the backbone of American medical research and a major driver of innovation and economic growth

  • Written by Fred D. Ledley, Director, Center for Integration of Science and Industry, Bentley University
imageNIH researchers conducted some of the earliest experiments for developing chemotherapy to treat cancer, circa 1950.National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health

As a young medical student in 1975, I walked into a basement lab at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to interview for a summer job.

It turned out to be the...

Read more: How the NIH became the backbone of American medical research and a major driver of innovation and...

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