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The grants, provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, would fund key priorities in American medicine, including cures for cancer, preventative heart disease treatment and autism research, Obama said.

"This represents the single largest boost to biomedical research in history," Obama told about 400 NIH employees during a speech at the campus Clinical Research Center.

The $5 billion distributed by NIH from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act went to 12,000 individual grants to universities such as Johns Hopkins and research agencies around the country through the 2009 fiscal year, which ended Wednesday. Included in this number were 1,800 first-time grant recipients.

"They proposed some of the most innovative and creative research I have ever seen in 16 years at NIH," said NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins in remarks preceding Obama's speech.

Of the $10 billion in stimulus funds approved for NIH use through September 2010, a total of $500 million was also earmarked for repair and improvements on the Bethesda campus through the federal stimulus.

In addition to the research benefits from the stimulus package, Obama also argued that the research would create new jobs, save others and make sure that patients who benefit from his planned health care reform initiatives have strong treatment and prevention options available.

"Progress takes time. It takes hard work. It can be unpredictable," Obama told his