Guard Appointed Chair of NIH Scientific Review Group

Roger Guard, assistant senior vice president, UC Medical Center Academic Information Technology & Libraries, and associate dean for Information Systems, UC College of Medicine, was named chairman of the National Library of Medicine's Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee.  The National Library of Medicine (NLM) is one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health.  Guard's chairmanship began July 1, 2003 and will end June 30, 2004.  He has served on this committee for three years, including one year as chair of the Networked Information Access Subcommittee.

"It is an honor to be asked to chair this review committee by the director of the National Library of Medicine," said Guard.  "The programs under the committee's purview are crucial to the development of information technology and library resources that serve scientists, clinicians, and administrators at our nation's academic medical centers.  Committee members include some of the foremost thinkers and practitioners in the field." 

The Biomedical Library and Informatics Review Committee evaluates and recommends funding for grant proposals to the NLM's major extramural programs, including research grants (R01s), Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems (IAIMS) grants, Information Systems grants, Internet Access to Digital Libraries grants, training grants, and publication grants.  As the nation's premier repository of biomedical information, the NLM has a vital interest in information management and in the utility of computers and telecommunication for improving storage, retrieval, access, and use of biomedical information. The purpose of peer review is to evaluate and rate the scientific and technical merit of the proposed research or program development.