The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has finalized the Institute's new Strategic Plan, which according to NIEHS Director Linda S. Birnbaum, "is about what we will strive to accomplish together as we devote ourselves to research that, in my opinion, has the greatest chance for preventing disease and for improving health throughout the world." The vision statement of the organization is "to provide global leadership for innovative research that improves public health by preventing disease and disability from our environment." In addition, under the new strategy the National Toxicology Program (NTP) has been elevated to the divisional level and the NTP will move beyond traditional approaches of testing one chemical at a time and take on the significant challenge of evaluating mixtures, examining the effects of exposure throughout the life span, and expanding research and testing to include prenatal exposures and how they might link to adult disease.