The National Institutes of Health is the medical research agency of the federal government, and it sits within the Department of Health and Human Services. It funds biomedical research across the country and also carries out research in its own laboratories. NIH is organized into 27 Institutes and Centers, each with its own research agenda, and many of them concentrate on a single disease or on one body system.
The agency employs about 18,000 people in a wide range of occupations, not research positions alone. Along with scientists, physicians and laboratory staff, it hires people to administer and review research grants, manage data and information systems, handle contracts and budgets, and keep its institutes running. Its main campus is in Bethesda, Maryland.
Because each Institute and Center sets its own research direction, the subject matter of a job at NIH depends largely on which one a person joins.