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A look inside NIH Clinical Center: the largest clinical research hospital in the country

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center is the largest clinical research hospital in the country. It’s a government-run medical research agency, and about 7,000 scientists work in its research laboratories looking for new ways to improve health and save lives.

Next year, more than $39 billion in taxpayer dollars will be spent by the NIH to find treatments and cures for the biggest health issues in the country, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Right now, there are about 1,600 research studies in progress.

Dr. Larissa Korde is part of a NIH study, working to help find the latest breakthrough in breast cancer.

She says the work done at NIH has a proven track record.

“Women with HER2+ breast cancer now have numerous effective therapies and tend to live longer than they did before those drugs were evaluated and came to the market,” Korde said. “And our research has been involved all along the way.”               

With each new study, doctors continue to learn more and hope the next discovery will help save more lives.