NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The National Institutes of Health announced this week it will award $1 million in fiscal year 2015 to establish a metabolomics research core that will support the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN).
NIH anticipates granting one award for a project period of three years, with $500,000 in each of the fiscal years 2016 and 2017.
The UDN is looking to expand the application of metabolomics by creating "boutique" assays to detect and quantize non-traditional metabolites that are likely abnormal products of rare and under-described diseases. Analytical methods, analyses, technologies, and metabolomics expertise will be combined with other UDN information to help diagnose patients and understand underlying pathology of rare diseases.
A major goal of the project is to identify rare, abnormal, and novel metabolites as defined by a patient's disease. NIH said that applicants will not be expected to develop new technology but should propose innovative approaches that will identify and measure novel metabolites.
The metabolomics core will collaborate closely with NIH and with the other laboratories in the UDN, including the sequencing and model organism screening cores.
Applications will be accepted from March 15 until April 15.