The National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world’s foremost biomedical research centers, is a Government agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is comprised of 28 separate components.

NIH seeks to uncover new scientific knowledge that will lead to better health for everyone. NIH conducts research in its own laboratories; supports the research of non-Federal scientists in universities, medical schools, hospitals, and research institutions; helps train biomedical researchers; and distributes biomedical information to physicians, patients, the press and the general public.

About 11 percent of NIH’s budget funds the more than 2,000 projects conducted in the agency’s own laboratories, most of which are located in Bethesda, Maryland. Other sites include North Carolina, Montana and Arizona.

NIH distributes more than 81 percent of its dollars through grants and contracts supporting research and training in more than 1,700 institutions throughout the United States and abroad. About 35,000 research projects outside the agency’s own laboratories currently receive NIH funding.

One hundred and two scientists who worked at NIH or received NIH support have won Nobel Prizes for achievements as diverse as deciphering the genetic code and learning what causes hepatitis. Five of these Nobelists were NIH’s own scientists.