After years of rather disappointing funding news, things are looking up a little for US life scientists. On 31 January, Congress pledged to raise the 2007 budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by $620 million to $29 billion, dispelling fears that the agency would be facing flat funding this year. But on 5 February, President George W. Bush called for 2008 funding at the biomedical research agency to be less than that (see page 572) — although Congress is likely to supplement it later in the year.

These developments together mark a modest success for the biomedical research lobby and for NIH director Elias Zerhouni. In the face of considerable scepticism, he argued that the NIH has made effective use of the doubling in funding that it received between 1998 and 2003. His push for 'translational medicine', with its emphasis on the transfer of ideas from the laboratory to the clinic, has helped to convince lawmakers that the agency is working hard to address America's healthcare needs.

The rapid expansion of the NIH was always likely to create a period of inflated expectations in biomedical research, during which researchers might feel short-changed. The funding boost was accompanied by a massive building boom at university medical centres and by a flood of postdocs to staff them. It was inevitable, after five years of 15% compound growth came to an end in 2003, that someone's expectations weren't going to be met. The best that the life sciences could hope for was that there would be only a short pause before Congress resumed its long-standing love affair with the NIH.

This pause may now be coming to an end. If that were so, it would be due to the efforts of Zerhouni and his staff, but also to scientists' direct lobbying on their own behalf. Organizations such as the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) have long urged researchers to become more involved in the political process, but have often felt that their calls go unheeded.

This time, scientists were listening. FASEB's Office of Public Affairs has announced that more than 15,000 scientists sent letters last summer urging public officials to reverse the slowdown in NIH funding, and more than 12,000 researchers have signed up to the organization's urgent-action e-mail list. At the ASCB meeting in December, a session on outreach and communication was packed, with standing-room only.

It would be unfortunate if this slightly better funding picture convinced researchers to drop their new-found level of political engagement. Scientists have plenty to do in their daily lives and may struggle to find time to write a letter to the newspaper, speak to a classroom at school, or even visit their Congressman. But in the end, such activities can pay dividends.