Press Releases
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2011
2005-2009 |
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2011
December 23, 2011:
NIH establishes National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences
In a move to re-engineer the process of translating scientific discoveries into new drugs, diagnostics, and devices, the National Institutes of Health has established the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The action was made possible by Congress' approval of a fiscal year 2012 spending bill and the president's signing of the bill, which includes the establishment of NCATS with a budget of $575 million. NCTT will be a major part of the new center.
December 7, 2011: US Tox21 to begin screening 10,000 chemicals
A high-speed robotic screening system, aimed at protecting human health by improving how chemicals are tested in the United States, begins today to test 10,000 compounds for potential toxicity. The compounds cover a wide variety of classifications, and include consumer products, food additives, chemicals found in industrial processes, and human and veterinary drugs. A complete list of the compounds is publicly available at www.epa.gov/ncct/dsstox.
November 15, 2011: NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases Program announces next round of drug development projects
Researchers will begin drug development projects for rare and neglected diseases that include potential treatments for a musculoskeletal disorder, a cognitive dysfunction disorder, a virus that affects the central nervous system of newborns, a parasitic worm infection, a form of muscular dystrophy and a rare lung disease. The six new projects are part of the National Institutes of Health's Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program.
May 25, 2011: NIH and non-profits sign research and development agreement
The National Institutes of Health today announced an agreement with two non-profit organizations to accelerate the development of potential clinical therapies for rare blood cancers. The cooperative research and development agreement has been established as a shared commitment to move therapies for rare blood cancers into clinical proof-of-concept studies so that promising treatments can eventually be commercialized. The agreement is among the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), the NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program and the Hematology Branch within the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
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April 27, 2011: NIH researchers create comprehensive collection of approved drugs to identify new therapies for rare and neglected diseases
Researchers have begun screening the first definitive collection of thousands of approved drugs for clinical use against rare and neglected diseases. They are hunting for additional uses of the drugs, hoping to find off-label therapies for some of the 6,000 rare diseases that afflict 25 million Americans. The effort is coordinated by the National Institutes of Health's Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC). The research is described in a paper appearing in the April 27 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
March 10, 2011: New robot system to test 10,000 chemicals for toxicity
Several federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, today unveiled a new high-speed robot screening system that will test 10,000 different chemicals for potential toxicity. The system marks the beginning of a new phase of an ongoing collaboration, referred to as Tox21, that is working to protect human health by improving how chemicals are tested in the United States.
Last Updated: January 4, 2012
