What is the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center?
The NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, is the research hospital for the NIH, the Federal Government’s principal agency for biomedical research. The NIH Clinical Center is actually made up of two centers: the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center and the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. The NIH Clinical Center as a whole promotes translational research—that is, the transformation of scientific laboratory research into applications that benefit patient health and medical care. At the Center, patient care units are in close proximity to cutting-edge technologies and laboratories doing related research. This “bench-to-bedside” approach facilitates interaction and collaboration among clinicians and researchers. The Clinical Center supports clinical trials conducted by the 27 Institutes and Centers of the NIH, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI). More information about the NIH Clinical Center is available on the Center’s Web site at http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov o
