How do I?
Frequently Asked Questions About Working With NCTT
If you're a researcher, NCTT wants to collaborate with you. Find out what programs line up with your expertise and whom to contact to get started with the questions and answers below.
- How do I collaborate with the NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Disease (TRND) program?
- How do I collaborate with the Tox21 initiative?
- How do I access the NCTT Pharmaceutical Collection?
- How do I collaborate to create NCTT probe molecules?
- How do I create an assay for high throughput screening?
- How do I collaborate with Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs) program?
- How do I collaborate with the Trans-NIH RNA interference (RNAi) initiative?
- How do I collaborate with the Chemistry Technology Group?
How do I collaborate with the NIH Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Disease (TRND) program?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program was established to encourage and speed the development of new drugs for rare and neglected diseases. This program is specifically intended to stimulate drug discovery and development research collaborations between NIH and academic scientists, non-profit organizations, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies working on rare and neglected illnesses.
The TRND program provides an opportunity to partner with and gain access to rare and neglected disease drug development capabilities, expertise, and clinical/regulatory resources in a collaborative environment with the goal of moving promising therapeutics into human clinical trials. TRND uses a solicitation application and evaluation process to select collaborators. No funds are awarded. If the drug originator applicant is selected the applicant's team will partner with TRND staff to mutually agree on a joint project plan and to implement the drug development program. The applicant investigators provide the drug project starting points and ongoing biological/disease expertise throughout the project. For the latest solicitation and project information, visit Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND).
A collaboration agreement (e.g. NIH Collaborative Research Agreement, CRADA, MOU,) will be established between TRND and successful applicants.
How do I collaborate with the Tox21 initiative?
The Tox21 initiative collaborative effort began in 2006, combining the expertise in in vivo animal toxicology of the National Toxicology Program (NTP), the expertise in computational toxicology of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the unparalleled capacity and expertise in in vitro cell-based assays, quantitative high-throughput screening (qHTS), and informatics of NCTT. In July 2010, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) joined the collaboration, bringing expertise in human toxicity data, with the aim of improving upon current chemical testing methods.
The NCTT is continually developing, validating, and integrating in vitro toxicity assays into the quantitative high-throughput screening (qHTS) platform, and is currently soliciting assay proposals from investigators in all areas, both within and outside the government.
To propose an assay, investigators should submit an assay nomination form to Menghang Xia at mxia@mail.nih.gov. Proposed assays should be compatible with the qHTS guidelines as described in the assay guidance criteria on the NCTT website. Submitted proposals are evaluated by the Tox 21 Assay work group on an ongoing basis.
How do I access the NCTT Pharmaceutical Collection?
The NCTT Pharmaceutical Collection is a definitive collection of thousands of approved drugs. The NCTT Pharmaceutical Collection browser can also be accessed at at http://tripod.nih.gov/npc. The browser provides complete information on the nearly 27,000 active pharmaceutical ingredients, including 2,750 small molecule drugs that have been approved by regulatory agencies from the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan, as well as all compounds that have been registered for human clinical trials.
NCTT collaborates with disease foundations, industry and academic investigators with disease-relevant assays to screen against the approved drug collection. Given the cost and limited quantities of the drugs in the collection, each partnership to screen the NPC will be evaluated based on the quality of each disease-related assay and its scientific merit.
Questions regarding collaboration or access to the NPC collection should be addressed to NCTT Scientific Director, Dr. Chris Austin, at austinc@mail.nih.gov. For all other inquiries, please contact Drs. Ruili Huang at huangru@mail.nih.gov or Noel Southall at southalln@mail.nih.gov.
How do I collaborate to create NCTT probe molecules?
NCTT is part of the Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network (MLPCN), which offers biomedical researchers access to the large-scale screening capacity, along with medicinal chemistry and informatics necessary to identify chemical probe molecules to study the functions of genes, cells, and biochemical pathways. This will lead to new ways to explore the functions of genes and signaling pathways in health and disease.
To obtain NCTT probe molecules, please contact Dr. Ajit Jadhav at ajadhav@mail.nih.gov
How do I create an assay for high throughput screening?
NCTT has an Assay Guidance Manual for development of assays for high throughput screening.
An assay is defined by a set of reagents that produce a detectable signal allowing a biological process to be quantified. The robustness and reproducibility of this signal will depend on the type of signal measured (absorbance, fluorescence, radioactivity etc), reagents, reaction conditions and analytical and automation instrumentation employed. Assays developed for HTS can be roughly characterized as cell-free or cell-based in nature. The assay methodology must be validated by proceeding through a series of steps along the pathway to high throughput screening as outlined in the Assay Guidance Manual.
Additional information may also be found on our Assay Development page. If you have additional questions about assay development, please contact Jim Inglese at jinglese@mail.nih.gov.
How do I collaborate with Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs) program?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) established NIH-RAID (Rapid Access to Interventional Development) to make available, on a competitive basis, certain critical resources needed for the development of new therapeutic agents. The NIH-RAID Program will be re-launched this fall as part of NCTT under a new name — Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs).
BrIDGs is intended to advance promising therapies into the clinic by providing in-kind services to overcome late stage preclinical therapy development obstacles.
BrIDGs will largely maintain the scope and available resources of NIH-RAID, while offering a faster application and approval process. Details about the new application and upcoming receipt dates will be published on this site in the future.
How do I collaborate with the Trans-NIH RNA interference (RNAi) initiative?
Gene silencing through RNAi has emerged as a powerful tool for understanding gene function. The Trans-NIH RNAi initiative is an intramural NIH resource providing state-of-the-art high throughput RNAi genome-wide screens for both human and mouse. We are actively looking for collaborators. If you're interested in performing a high-throughput RNAi screen, please read the Screening Guide & Application
and contact Scott Martin at martinsc@mail.nih.gov.
How do I collaborate with the Chemistry Technology Group?
The Chemistry Technology Group is involved in many ongoing collaborations within the broad disciplines of medicinal chemistry, chemical biology and drug discovery. Individuals interested in working with the Chemistry Technology Group should contact Craig Thomas at craigt@mail.nih.gov.
Last Updated: December 12, 2011
