Statement for the Record Senate Subcommittee on Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations April 2, 2014 Stephen I. Katz, M.D., Ph.D., Director National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases ______________________________________ Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am pleased to present the President’s Budget request for the National Institute of Arthritis

September 9, 2016 The decision to fund or not to fund a particular application is based on the assessment of scientific merit by a peer review group and on the relevance of the proposed work to the Institute's scientific and health priorities. Peer reviewers' judgments of scientific merit are expressed

September 9, 2016 Fiscal Year 2015 Actual Obligations* Budget Mechanism No. of Awards Amount Research Grants Research Project Grants (RPG): Noncompeting 666 $233,629,535 Administrative Supplements (28) 2,443,511 Competing 279 92,928,202 Subtotal 945 329,001,248 Small Business Innovation/Technology 43 14,280,119 Subtotal, RPGs 988 343,281,367 Research Centers 42 43,119,805 Other Research: Career Programs

The Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) provides an open research resource to aid in the identification and evaluation of biomarkers as candidates for surrogate endpoints for osteoarthritis.

This document outlines the process by which requests for access to existing biospecimens from the OAI resource are processed, evaluated, and approved.