NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases is planning to fund Genetic Research Centers and a Data Coordinating Center to further knowledge of the genes and variants involved in inflammatory bowel diseases.
Under the program, NIDDK plans to publish requests for applications to fund centers that will continue to advance the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Genetics Research Consortium, a project that over the past decade has contributed to the identification of over 100 susceptibility genes for IBD.
In spite of successes in this area, there still remain many susceptibility genes to be identified, and there is a need for more study of the mechanisms by which variants of these genes influence these diseases, according to NIDDK.
During the next funding period, the institute plans to support research to identify additional genes and to explore the effects of risk variants on patterns of gene expression, metabolite abundance, and measures of immune system activity, and to integrate these observations with studies of intestinal microbes. The IBDGC also may study patterns of chromatin modification and gene expression.
The Data Coordinating Center will support these efforts by managing the data and biological sample collections generated by the centers and coordinate the analyses of these data and the operations of the IBDGC.
NIDDK is encouraging investigators with expertise in the genetics of IBD, as well as collaborators that combine genomics, proteomics, epigenomics, bioinformatics, and other approaches to begin considering applying for this new funding.