Program is asking Council to approve a new initiative called “Discovery Gateway to Reproductive Health Innovation.” This resource aims to tackle ongoing challenges in reproductive health by speeding up the discovery of new medicines and biomarkers that signal disease or health.
This initiative will establish a web-based knowledge resource that brings together insights generated from clinical, genetic, and other human-derived biological data, along with newly generated data. NIH-compliant repositories will be used to support new data related work. Because these diverse data types are typically maintained in controlled-access repositories, the resource itself will not redistribute the underlying data. Instead, it will share knowledge aggregated from those data. By bringing these data together, researchers will be better able to pinpoint causes of reproductive health problems, uncover key genetic nodes, and identify useful biomarkers and targets for new treatments. Taking advantage of current data science tools (e.g., programming languages, visualization software) and existing infrastructure, the Discovery Gateway will be a central knowledgebase including openly accessible online tools and knowledge for researchers, supporting idea generation, testing, and collaboration. In the end, the goal is to turn this wealth of information into practical knowledge, so scientists can make discoveries that lead to better reproductive health and new products for patients.
The Discovery Gateway aims to empower reproductive health research by providing an open knowledgebase to reduce risks associated with identifying targets and biomarkers. It will also establish the groundwork for future collaborations via the Foundation for the NIH and others. Notably, Foundation for the NIH initiatives—such as the Accelerating Medicines Partnership and the Biomarkers Consortium—have proven the benefits of pre-competitive public–private collaborations. By sharing knowledge about biomarkers, targets, and drug-development tools, these partnerships accelerate the translation of discoveries across various disease areas.
These efforts align with NICHD’s Vision for Understanding the molecular, cellular and structural phases of development (Theme 1), Advancing reproductive health (Theme 2), Healthy pregnancies and lifelong wellness (Theme 3) and Fostering safe and effective therapeutics (Theme 5).
This initiative aligns with the Obstetric and Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics Branch goals: pediatric and perinatal pharmacology, pregnancy, lactation, infant health, nutrition, environmental influences, and development.
This initiative also directly supports the implementation recommendations of the legislatively-mandated Task Force on Research Specific to Pregnant Women and Lactating Women (PRGLAC) by leveraging existing data resources and infrastructure, applying innovative analytics, and fostering public–private collaboration to accelerate discovery of therapeutics and biomarkers for pregnancy and reproductive health conditions.
Program Contact
Chris Lindsey
Obstetric and Pediatric, Pharmacology and Therapeutics Branch (OPPTB)
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