| NIGMS plays a significant role in a
number of activities within the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research.
It leads the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and the Structural
Biology initiatives. The Institute is also responsible for major
components of the Molecular Libraries and Imaging and the Interdisciplinary
Research initiatives. FY 2005 funding through these elements of
the NIH Roadmap launched efforts to:
- Accelerate creation of the core of a wide-ranging computing
infrastructure that is urgently needed for rapid progress in biomedical
research. Three new National Centers for Biomedical Computing
joined four others funded in FY 2004 to develop and make available
software programs and other tools that will permit researchers
to integrate and analyze data of different types and sources,
blazing new pathways for understanding biological processes and
human diseases.
- Develop innovative methods for speeding the determination of
membrane protein structures. Membrane proteins control the movement
of molecules into and out of cells, making them key players in
such critical functions as nerve impulses and immune response.
Importantly, these proteins are the targets for a large number
of therapeutic drugs. The new grants include several exploratory
projects that are considered scientifically risky but that, if
successful, promise to have a high impact on the field.
- Devise new methods for discovering, deriving, and producing
biologically active compounds from natural sources such as microorganisms,
marine organisms, and plants. The goal is to exploit nature’s
prolific supply of molecules with therapeutic potential.
- Generate collections of diverse chemical compounds that will
be screened to identify molecules capable of enhancing or inhibiting
specific biological functions. Such molecules have many applications
in research and could aid in the discovery of new drugs.
- Improve ways of predicting the possible toxicity of compounds
much earlier in the drug development process.
- Build exquisitely sensitive imaging tools to track individual
molecules and pathways in living cells in order to understand
their roles in health and disease.
Also in FY 2005, NIGMS became the administrative home for the NIH
Director’s Pioneer Award program. This award complements NIH’s
traditional, investigator-initiated grant programs by supporting
exceptionally creative scientists who take innovative approaches
to major challenges in biomedical research. Recipients gain the
intellectual freedom to pursue groundbreaking new research directions
that have the potential for unusually great impact.
The 13 Pioneer awardees selected in FY 2005 work in diverse areas,
including neuroscience, genetics, epidemiology, chemistry, stem
cell biology, behavioral science, infectious diseases, and technology
development. Six are women, one is from an underrepresented minority
group, and more than half are at relatively early stages of their
careers (the associate professor level or below).
NIGMS benefits greatly from these and other NIH Roadmap initiatives,
which complement and advance the Institute’s own efforts in
bioinformatics and computational biology, structural biology, chemistry,
pharmacology, and molecular imaging. The high degree of trans-NIH
collaboration in Roadmap activities makes it possible to embark
on projects that are larger in scale, require a broader range of
expertise, and entail higher risk than NIGMS or any other institute
could realistically take on alone.
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