Guest Editorial: NTP: New Initiatives, New Alignment

has for nearly 30 years led the effort to apply the science of toxicology to the protection of public health. In June 2007 I became the Associate Director of the NTP. I accepted this challenge with enthusiasm and pledged to a) maintain our traditional areas of strength in toxicology research and testing; b) accelerate our efforts to fulfill the goals set forth in A National Toxicology Program for the 21st Century: A Roadmap for the Future (NTP 2004); and c) explore new scientific opportunities to understand how individual genetic susceptibilities affect responses to environmental exposures. The NTP has received considerable attention in the press and from Congress in recent months. Events surrounding the review of bisphenol A by an expert panel convened to provide advice to the NTP Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR 2007) led to reviews of all NTP contracts for potential conflicts of interest (NTP Board of Scientific Counselors 2007). also prompted interest in the impacts of changing institutional priorities on the traditional activities of the NTP. This attention highlighted a long-recognized need for a change in our alignment within the NIEHS Division of Intramural Research (DIR). The need was to give a clearer identity to activities, staff, and dollars associated with the NTP, because for well over a decade these resources had been scattered across several DIR programs. Although the " larger " NTP, as established in 1978, remains an interagency program with our partners at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and at the National Center for Toxicological Research of the Food and Drug Administration, the absence of the NTP from the NIEHS organizational chart had increasingly become a problem for achieving recognition of our primary physical location within the NIH, and also of our unique capabilities and mission. On 28 October 2007 the DIR was realigned to establish the NTP as a fifth program. The new NTP at the NIEHS brings together the staff working on public health issues and nominated substances, those carrying out the important analysis activities to produce the Report on Carcinogens and the NTP–CERHR monographs, and those who support the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods. The budget for this new program will include funding for research and development (R&D) contracts, staff salaries, equipment, and travel. R&D contracts have traditionally provided NTP capabilities for research and testing functions, as well as …