The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) was established on December 23, 2011[1] and is located in Bethesda, Maryland.

[3] The center was created from a number of existing NIH programs:[4] Past directors 2011 – present[7] NCATS is organized into a number of divisions: The stated goal of NCATS is to promote research in both existing and new areas of medicine and science, in order to promote public health and to overcome high failure rates in clinical trials.

[9][10] To accomplish this, NCATS supports 31 programs and initiatives that relate to translational research and improving the speed of therapeutic development.

[11] The 31 programs and initiatives involve a range of STEM-related fields including biology, biochemistry, chemistry, bioengineering, virology, genetics, and data science.

[14] An additional data sharing partnership with several other government institutes resulted in a study detailing the COVID-related risks for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.