The folks at UNC-Chapel Hill's medical school couldn't be happier with President Barack Obama's recent nomination of geneticist Dr. Francis Collins to lead the National Institutes of Health.

After all, the NIH doles out $30 billion a year and is the largest source of university research money in the nation. That doesn't include an extra $10 billion headed to NIH through the federal stimulus package.

Collins has close ties to UNC, where he started his medical career. He graduated from UNC's medical school in 1977 and then did a residency in internal medicine in Chapel Hill, 1978-1981.

Collins most recently headed up the National Human Genome Research Institute, the agency that worked to map the human genetic code.

The affable geneticist received widespread attention for his 2006 book, "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief," in which he argues that faith and science can coexist.

He's also known as a heck of a graduation speaker. The UNC Health Care blog features a You Tube clip of Collins singing to graduates at the University of Michigan.

A research center on alcoholism could lose funding.

For more than 26 years, the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill has conducted scientific research on the genetic and physiological causes and effects of chronic alcohol abuse.

Its $500,000 annual appropriation is among 20 programs that Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed eliminating as part of her $21 billion budget. 

Recent studies by the center have looked into how some former alcoholics train their brains to think harder about long-term consequences, how binge-drinking impairs the brain and how an injectable drug could reduce alcohol dependence.

Reducing the state's contribution to the center would hurt, but the research would continue thanks to regular grants from the National Institutes of Health and other sources.

"Very little of our overall funding comes from the state," said spokeswoman Elizabeth Thomas. 

Perdue's proposed budget also includes a 5 percent increase on the tax on alcohol. The center is named for Hargrove "Skipper" Bowles, father of UNC system president Erskine Bowles.

The chimp act is now law.

President Bush this week signed into law the Chimpanzee Health Improvement, Maintenance, and Protection Act of 2000, an effort pushed by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr to keep certain chimpanzees out of the hands of scientists at the National Institutes of Health.

"This law ensures retired chimps will not be called back for additional medical research," said Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican. "These chimps have helped further medical knowledge and deserve permanent retirement."

The bill focused on a new primate retirement home in Keithville, La., called Chimp Haven. Burr said the law restricts the research permitted on chimps at the sanctuary to "noninvasive behavioral studies and medical studies based on information gatthered during the course of normal veterinary care."

Richard Burr, friend to primates and a Republican senator from Winston-Salem, helped introduce a bill today to keep chimpanzees out of the hands of scientists at the National Institutes of Health.

The bill focuses on a new primate retirement home in Keithville, La., called Chimp Haven. The sanctuary holds more than 100 chimpanzees that have previously been used in research, some of which have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis, reports Barb Barrett.

Chimps can be used for noninvasive research at the facility, but they also can, for now, be removed for further research by the NIH. The bill Burr supports would prohibit such removal.

The bill also is sponsored by Louisiana senators David Vitter, a Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Democrat.

U.S. Sen Charles Grassley criticized a former Duke professor working for a government health institute in Research Triangle Park.

In a letter to the head of the National Institutes of Health, the  Iowa Republican questioned ethical and financial decisions made by Dr. David Schwartz while overseeing the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The senator says Schwartz hired himself out to testify in asbestos lawsuits, retained inappropriately close ties to Duke, which receives research money, and use taxpayer money to decorate and office and buy a $936 limousine ride to a meeting.

Schwartz said they were innocent mistakes. 

 "I believe I have worked in a very reputable way consistent with the highest ethical standards in the decisions I've made and the actions I've taken," he said. (N&O)