NIH director Zerhouni to step down

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The director of the National Institutes of Health is resigning, after retooling the premiere research agency to spur innovative science while it struggles for sufficient funding.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, 57, announced Wednesday that he will step down next month, after six years at the NIH helm.

A radiologist lauded for improving medical imaging before President Bush tapped him to lead the NIH, the quiet Zerhouni is little known to the public, though he is one of science's most powerful men.

Despite an era when NIH's budget seldom kept up with inflation, behind the scenes Zerhouni engineered a major reorganization of the behemoth $29.5 billion agency designed to speed how basic science discoveries are turned into treatments -- and to spur creative research ideas that might otherwise languish.

"Science changes fast. You want your scientists to have maximum freedoms to explore in different ways," Zerhouni told The Associated Press.

Zerhouni also demanded that NIH-funded scientists provide better public access to research results that until recently were restricted to high-priced medical journals.

Zerhouni came to the job at a contentious period, as scientists decried Bush's limits on taxpayer-funded research into potentially rejuvenating embryonic stem cells. Zerhouni eventually called for that policy to be changed, an issue that awaits the next president.

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