DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, AND BLOOD ADVISORY COUNCIL

MEETING SUMMARY OF THE
NATIONAL HEART, LUNG, AND BLOOD ADVISORY COUNCIL

March 25, 2026

The 314th meeting of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Advisory Council (NHLBAC) convened virtually on Wednesday, March 25, 2026. The Council meeting began with a closed session that started at 10:09 a.m. and ended at 11:39 a.m. The open session reconvened from 12:00 p.m. and ended at 12:28 p.m. Dr. David C. Goff, Acting Director of NHLBI, presided as chair.

NHLBAC Members Attending
Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., M.P.H.
Amanda Mae Fretts, M.D., M.P.H.
Allison King, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.
Eldrin F. Lewis, M.D., M.P.H.
Solomon Ofori-Acquah, Ph.D.
Merritt Raitt, M.D., Ex Officio
Susan Redline, M.D., M.P.H.
Martha C. Sola-Visner, M.D.
Susan Spencer

Members of the Public Attending
The total number watching online was reported by NIH Videocast to be 229.

NHLBI Employees Attending
Several NHLBI staff members attended virtually via Zoom.

CLOSED SESSION

This portion of the meeting was closed to the public in accordance with the determination that it concerned matters exempt from mandatory disclosures under Sections 552b(c)(4) and 552b(c)(6), Title 5, U.S. Code and Section 10(d) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as amended.

REVIEW OF APPLICATIONS

The session included a discussion of procedures and policies regarding voting and confidentiality of application materials, committee discussions and recommendations. Members absented themselves from the meeting during discussion of, and voting on, applications from their own institutions or other applications in which there was a potential conflict of interest, real or apparent. Members were asked to sign a statement to this effect. The Council considered and recommended 3,885 applications requesting $10,161,229,570 in total costs. For the record, it is noted that secondary applications were also considered en bloc.

OPEN SESSION

CALL TO ORDER

Dr. David C. Goff, Acting Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), called the meeting to order at 12:00 p.m. He welcomed Council members, NHLBI staff, and public attendees to the Open Session of the meeting.

ADMINISTRATIVE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dr. Charisee A. Lamar, Director, Division of Extramural Research Activities (DERA), NHLBI informed attendees that the meeting would be publicly broadcast and archived on videocast. She reviewed the agenda.

REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR

Focusing his remarks on accountable stewardship, Dr. Goff provided an update on NHLBI’s leadership transition. Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., recently retired as NHLBI director after serving as an exceptional leader of the Institute for more than 13 years. Dr. Goff commented on Dr. Gibbons’s unwavering dedication to fulfilling NHLBI’s scientific and public health mission. NHLBI continues to embrace the path charted by Dr. Gibbons with the Strategic Vision Refresh. Among Dr. Gibbons’s accomplishments was establishing NHLBI’s Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science, which positioned the Institute to contribute to the launch of the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and maintain this research network’s relevance as a platform for community-engaged studies that will improve the health of Americans. Dr. Gibbons helped to ensure that the NIH RECOVER: Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery Initiative is responsive to the ongoing science of long COVID-19. With his interest in precision medicine, Dr. Gibbons was a champion of the Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) program to advance the scientific understanding of the fundamental biological processes that underlie heart, lung, blood, and sleep (HLBS) disorders. Dr. Gibbons also was instrumental in advancing several NHLBI initiatives—such as the COPDGene Study®, the NIH Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial, BioData Catalyst, and the Chronic Hypertension and Pregnancy (CHAP) study. His bold vision for the Cure Sickle Cell Initiative facilitated the development of two U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved gene therapies for this condition.

NHLBI will continue to uphold its enduring principles in times of change. The Institute values investigator-initiated fundamental discovery science and maintaining a balanced, cross-disciplinary portfolio of basic, translational, clinical, and population research. NHLBI makes every effort to train a robust, new generation of leaders in science. The Institute supports implementation science that empowers patients and enables partners to improve the health of the nation. Finally, NHLBI supports innovations and solutions-oriented approaches for the evidence-based elimination of health disparities in the United States and around the world.

Fiscal Stewardship. In the final fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget, Congress appropriated $3.99 billion for NHLBI. This amount represents a 0.20 percent ($8 million) increase over FY2025. The Institute’s budget has been flat for the past 4 years, which presents a challenge to support a historic number of awards given inflation in the cost of conducting biomedical research. NHLBI also co-leads several key NIH programs (e.g., Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone Initiative). Dr. Goff noted that multiyear funding for FY2026 is limited to the FY2025 amount and that indirect costs are maintained at current rates. NHLBI prioritizes investments in investigator-initiated science, but its flat budget has resulted in a decrease in the success rates of R01 and Early-Stage Investigator awards—mostly due to an increasing number of applications. K awards for training have not shown a drop off in success rates because the number of applications has remained constant. NHLBI continues to invest in early-career investigators and maintain support for individual career development.

NHLBI’s established funding practices are consistent with NIH efforts to advance its Unified Funding Strategy. NHLBI’s long-standing funding practices focus on the scientific and technical merit of the proposed project as determined by scientific peer review, NHLBAC recommendations, and relevance to the Institute’s strategic research priorities. Additionally, NHLBI seeks to maintain an overall programmatic portfolio balance and address needs. Development of the biomedical workforce is a priority, as well as supporting proposals with the potential for high scientific or public health impact.

NIH Strategic Plan. The NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for FY2027–2031 is under development. NIH has established a framework that outlines three key priorities: (1) Research Areas (i.e., address emerging and critical biomedical research areas); (2) Research Capacity (i.e., build and maintain the capacity to conduct biomedical research); and (3) Research Operations (i.e., operate with the highest integrity to oversee gold standard science). The public may submit comments to the Request for Information for the FY2027–2031 NIH Strategic Plan through May 16, 2026. Additionally, NIH is hosting a webinar on the development of the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for FY2027–2031 on April 8, 2026 (2:30 p.m.–3:30 p.m. EDT).

NHLBI-NIH-HHS Alignment. NIH Director Jayanta (Jay) Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., has outlined NIH priorities, which are aligned with NHLBI’s mission, as well as the broader goals for the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. NHLBI’s research portfolio and efforts are well aligned with these priorities, which are as follows:

• Chronic Disease—NIH is focusing on research to close critical research gaps and improve the health of all Americans. NHLBI is pursuing a multidimensional, systems biology research approach to close the gaps in health outcomes and improve health for all people through prevention and early intervention for chronic HLBS conditions.
• Nutrition, Diet, and Lifestyle—NIH is prioritizing the role of maternal and infant dietary exposures on health outcomes across the lifespan—including exploring the role of poor diets and identifying healthy diets. Many chronic HLBS conditions are influenced by nutrition, diet, and lifestyle.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)—NIH is prioritizing alternative testing models and real-world data platforms to expedite the research, development, and translation of discoveries to benefit patients. To improve outcomes with AI-enabled precision health, NHLBI is advancing human systems biology and the development of AI tools. Priority areas include the molecular drivers of heart disease, women’s health during periods of transition (e.g., pregnancy and menopause), and early biomarkers of lung health. NHLBI research in this area aims to link rich sources of behavioral, environmental, -omics, and imaging data.
• Implementation Science—NIH is testing, advancing, and scaling innovative evidence-based interventions to address poor health outcomes, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The priority of implementation science resonates with NHLBI’s support of research on promising strategies for adopting, integrating, sustaining, scaling, and spreading evidence-based HLBS interventions in clinical and public health settings such as clinics, worksites, and communities.
• Health Disparities Research—NIH is shifting to solutions-oriented approaches, continuing to support global research partnerships, and prioritizing gold-standard science. Many NHLBI programs take a solutions-oriented approach to addressing health disparities—including those related to living in a rural area—in HLBS conditions.
• Train the Next Generation—NIH is focusing on supporting future physicians and scientists in designing and conducting high-quality research. NHLBI continues to support initiatives that bolster training across career stages—from high school and undergraduate students through mid-career and established investigators. The Institute understands the particular importance of supporting early-stage investigators.

AI-Enabled Precision Health. NHLBI is leveraging its comprehensive data resources—including TOPMed’s multimodal data and BioData Catalyst cloud resource—for a systems-level approach to better HLBS health for all. The Institute recently funded a coordinating center for NHLBI AI-enabled precision health and will soon fund a data center. These efforts are supported by AI tool development and applications and AI-driven precision prevention. The first module program, Pioneering Research for Early Evaluation and Mechanistic PreempTion of Pulmonary Fibrosis (PREEMPT-PF), focuses on identifying early biomarkers of lung health. These efforts will establish a foundation for identifying pulmonary fibrosis at its earliest stages and discovering biological targets for potential pharmacotherapies. Subsequent modules will address precision nutrition research and women’s health during periods of transition (e.g., pregnancy and menopause) with the aims of preventing chronic diseases earlier and discovering biological targets for potential pharmacotherapies.

NHLBI empaneled the NHLBAC AI Working Group (External) to advise the Institute on integrating this technology to advance its public service, scientific, and public health missions. The Working Group will provide reports to NHLBAC, and Council members can reach out with comments. The Working Group will issue an initial report to the Council later this year—based on its ongoing meetings and a workshop this summer—with an additional report expected. By incorporating diverse perspectives to pursue human systems biology at scale with AI integration, NHLBI aims to accelerate new discoveries in HLBS science for years to come.

Cycle of Innovation. Dr. Goff explained how NHLBI implements the cycle of innovation and provides specific programmatic examples for illustration. Discovery science (e.g., PREEMPT-PF) involves identifying molecular targets for intervention, which are then validated and translated (e.g., the multimodal sleep foundation model for disease prediction from the Sleep Heart Health Study) into potential interventions that are tested in clinical trials. But it is not enough to conduct successful clinical trials (e.g., Cure Sickle Cell initiative). Effective interventions must be implemented in practice (e.g., a percutaneous aorto-coronary bypass graft) and integrated into health systems to result in a healthier population. NIH CEAL—along with Community Engagement Alliance Consultative Resources—are crucial to the integration of effective interventions into health systems to improve population health, as illustrated by the dissemination clinical practice guidelines based on CHAP results.

Dr. Goff emphasized that NHLBI’s partners—including patients, researchers, policymakers and government agencies, academic health centers, professional societies and foundations, the private sector and industry, primary care, and community organizations—form a collaborative ecosystem that drives scientific innovation and better health for all. He affirmed the Institute’s commitment to continue these partnerships to generate new knowledge on HLBS conditions and address the informational needs of decisionmakers, such as the professional societies that write clinical practice guidelines. Dr. Goff also expressed gratitude for the partnership of NHLBAC.

There were no questions, but a Council member commented on the leadership contributions of Dr. Gibbons, noting that it was great to see NHLBI continuing his work.

PRESENTATION

Dr. Charisee A. Lamar, Director, Division of Extramural Research Activities, NHLBI

Dr. Lamar remarked that NHLBAC members have access to the full operating procedures and authorities in the Electronic Council Book (ECB). She explained that the delegated authorities from NHLBAC allow NHLBI to take administrative actions and use scientific or professional services of not more than 100 special experts appointed by the NHLBI Director. They also permit NHLBI to expedite Council concurrence using procedures outlined in the delegated authorities document for program plans and en bloc actions, as well as to make certain administrative decisions regarding selecting and funding competing grant applications in the event of a federally declared emergency. These delegations apply if ECB and en bloc procedures are not feasible. Dr. Lamar provided a list of relevant source documents.

DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY

Delegated authorities allow NHLBI staff to perform specific functions without Council involvement, adding flexibility and decreasing the burden on the Council. NHLBAC members approved the annual delegated authorities presented, with no changes.

CLOSING REMARKS

Dr. Goff adjourned the meeting at 12:28 p.m.