To tackle the human health challenges that face the world today, the FNIH develops collaborations with top experts from government, industry, academia and the not-for-profit sector and provides a neutral environment where we can work productively toward a common goal.
The Baby Connectome Project (BCP) is a four-year study of children from birth through five years of age, intended to provide a better understanding of how the brain develops from infancy through early childhood and the factors that contribute to healthy brain development.
Development & Production of Endotoxin under GMP for Human Clinical Research is a program enabling NIH to develop and produce a new strain of endotoxin under good manufacturing practices (GMP) conditions.
This project will aim to standardize and validate measurement methods for inflammatory markers associated with Alzheimer’s Disease and/or Major Depressive Disorder to ultimately identify a unique biosignature of disease. The identified biosignature would greatly assist with medication development, patient diagnosing, and patient selection for clinical trials.
This workshop aimed at creating alignment among scientific stakeholders including the FDA, the NIH, the biopharmaceutical industry, academic researchers and patient groups regarding a proposed framework for determining the levels of evidence required to qualify biomarkers for use in drug development.
The AD Targeted Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) Proteomics Project, completed in Q2Y15, completed an initial validation of a multiplexed panel of known biomarkers, examined BACE levels and enzymatic activity, and set up the initial validation of a mass spectroscopy panel using AD cerebrospinal fluid samples from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI).
Sarcopenia 2 seeks to establish evidence-based cut-points for muscle mass and strength and determine their predictive validity for clinically meaningful outcomes (such as mobility, fractures, hospitalization and death); evaluate relative strength as a discriminator for mobility limitation and incident disability; and explore the potential usefulness of sarcopenia as a clinical endpoint in randomized clinical trials.
The Sarcopenia 1 project launched in 2010 and aimed to establish the first evidence-based definition of sarcopenia (muscle weakness), which is still not recognized as a medical condition.
whorton@fnih.orgThe Biomarkers Consortium’s PET Radioligand Project, completed in December 2012, developed improved, more sensitive PET radioligands with higher binding to the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor. Findings from this study suggest that the [11C]PBR38 ligand, in particular, may be useful in detecting progression from mild cognitive impairment or treatment response in Alzheimer’s Disease.
The Biomarkers Consortium - Osteoarthritis Biomarkers Project is a $3.4 million study aimed at determining which biomarkers have greater prognostic ability to measure early progression of structural and symptomatic changes in the joint over time and which are likely to predict treatment response better than the radiographic measurement of narrowing of joint space in knee OA patients. These new biomarkers are candidates for follow-on studies for evaluation and use in regulatory decision-making.
The Biomarkers Consortium’s Bone Quality Project aims to evaluate and to identify biomarkers of bone strength and quality changes by analyzing pooled imaging and biochemical data from multiple clinical studies to allow definition of better clinical endpoints.