Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act

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The Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act is a 2014 law that stops using taxpayer money from the Presidential Election Campaign Fund to pay for presidential nominating conventions. Instead, it redirects those funds to a pediatric research initiative run by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Common Fund for ten years.

Specifically, the act authorizes about $12.6 million per year for pediatric research from 2014 through 2023, totaling roughly $126 million. The money is to be used to support grants for pediatric research at NIH institutes and centers, with an emphasis on important new scientific opportunities and public health needs. The funds are meant to supplement, not replace, existing NIH pediatric research funding, and they should be directed toward areas that benefit from collaboration across institutes.

The act is named after Gabriella Miller of Leesburg, Virginia, who died at age 10 from a rare brain cancer called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) in 2013. While sick, she worked to raise awareness and funds for pediatric cancer research, inspiring the bill’s sponsors.

Legislative history: Rep. Gregg Harper introduced the bill in May 2013. It passed the House in December 2013 and then the Senate in March 2014. President Barack Obama signed it into law on April 3, 2014 (Public Law 113-94).

Reactions: Some lawmakers criticized the bill for bypassing the committee process and for not providing new funding beyond reallocating existing money, calling it symbolic. Others supported the shift in priorities toward accelerating pediatric biomedical research.