The U.S. Senate passed a bill Thursday that could provide research universities like the University of Wisconsin an additional $2.1 billion in National Institutes of Health funding.

The Specter-Harkins Amendment, an amendment to the federal budget, would restore funding for public health programs that has declined over the past few years. The amendment to add funding to the NIH budget passed the Senate by a vote of 95 to 4.

The decision came on the heels of an announcement Tuesday by Dean Robert Golden of the UW Medical School, President Drew Faust of Harvard, Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut of the Ohio Board of Regents, along with faculty researchers from other research universities around the country.

Faust gave an overview of a report issued Tuesday on the endangered research of young scientists due to constrictions in NIH support. Golden spoke on the report that was issued last year, which discussed the effects of limiting funding for research.

?In 2003, we had reached a point where we were really on the threshold to make major breakthrough discoveries in a lot of major areas, ranging from cancer to diabetes research,? Golden said. ?But then, because of the flattening of the NIH budget, what was within our grasp was literally slipping away because of the real loss in purchasing power over time due to inflation.?

Rhonda Norsetter, senior special assistant to the chancellor for federal relations, said most colleges on the UW campus receive funding from NIH to conduct research.

?It is, for this campus, the largest source of research funding,? she said. ?Over half of the research funding that comes to the University of Wisconsin-Madison comes from National Institutes of Health.?

Norsetter said the hope for the press conference was that the nation?s leaders would give research funding careful consideration and give NIH funding that is above inflationary costs so that the university can get back on a positive track with NIH funding. Because of the downturn in the economy and rising inflation rates, the same amount of NIH funding is worth less to researchers.

From 1998 to 2003, funding for NIH doubled because of bipartisan support for the program and the fact that there was recognition of the need for more scientists to push forward in breakthrough areas of research, Golden said.

?The increased funding was ? in order to increase the size of this army doing battle against these important diseases,? Golden said. ?What has happened now, in essence, is that the army that has increased is having its supplies and its equipment and its weapons taken away from them because the funding is flat.?

Golden said that compared to 2003, researchers have 13 percent less purchasing power in NIH resources, and there is an increased number of scientists competing for the same funding.

However, the reaction from the Senate coming just two days after the press conference that addressed the need for more funding was exactly the type of response they were hoping to generate by getting the message out there, Golden said.

?It is a very encouraging first step, and it is a clear signal that an overwhelming majority of people in the Senate understand how important this is,? Golden said.