- What are NCATS’ goals for the Biomedical Data Translator program?
- Why has NCATS created this program?
- What is the intent of the FY 2016 initiative?
- What are the anticipated outcomes within the two-year project period of this funding opportunity?
- Are non-awardees able to participate in the NCATS-organized quarterly workshops with the intent of learning more about challenges in this effort and identifying means of partnering on possible solutions?
- What types and sources of data will be included in the Biomedical Data Translator? Who will identify those data types and sources?
- Will software written as part of this program be open source?
- What are the intellectual property requirements regarding inventions made under this funding opportunity?
- What is the nature and extent of the collaborations for this program?
What are NCATS’ goals for the Biomedical Data Translator program?
The long-term goal is to accelerate translation through the development of a biomedical data translator for the research community. NCATS envisions this as a multiyear, iterative effort with the eventual development of a comprehensive, relational, N-dimensional Biomedical Data Translator that integrates multiple types of existing data sources, including objective signs and symptoms of disease, drug effects, and intervening types of biological data relevant to understanding pathophysiology. Each data type (see Appendix of FY 2016 Funding Opportunity Announcement (PDF - 134KB) for examples) must be comprehensive (e.g., all diseases, all pathways, all SNPs). It must be possible for a user to access the Translator from any data type and identify all connections in any other data type. In doing so, NCATS will enable a shift from the current symptom-based disease diagnosis to disease classification that is based on a set of molecular and cellular abnormalities that can be targeted by various preventative and therapeutic interventions..
Why has NCATS created this program?
NCATS created the Biomedical Data Translator program to address some of the biggest challenges in translational science. The different approaches taken and scientific language used by physicians and biomedical researchers can act as roadblocks in the translational path. NCATS takes a disease-agnostic approach toward addressing translational science, providing an interdisciplinary perspective that cuts across scientific boundaries and disease/organ system silos. Such a perspective is necessary to remove those roadblocks and help bring more treatments to more patients more quickly.
What is the intent of the FY 2016 initiative?
Awardees selected for the FY 2016 initiative will be announced in early October 2016. Those awarded will assess the architecture needs to build a Biomedical Data Translator and assess its technical feasibility. Awardees will contribute their expertise and resources to revolutionize translational science. Their collaborative efforts will propel new discoveries and best practices across the translational spectrum. All involved in translational science – including, but not limited to, biologists, chemists, computer scientists, scientists performing target validation, clinicians, and most importantly patients – will benefit from this initiative.
What are the anticipated outcomes within the two-year project period of this funding opportunity?
During the initial, two-year project period, awardees will identify high-value data sources that would be needed for a comprehensive Biomedical Data Translator and design the infrastructure that would be needed to integrate those data. Expected goals for the two-year projects include:
- Identifying high-value data sources that should be included in a comprehensive Translator and a means to evaluate validity and utility of those data;
- Developing a plan for integrating across a comprehensive variety of data types;
- Identifying integration barriers (e.g., entity recognition, entity resolution, entity stitching, etc.) or data inclusion barriers;
- Developing and testing a plan for data quality control;
- Developing a demonstration project that illustrates innovative integration of as many disparate data types as possible (novel integration of different data types being more important than the number of data types integrated); and
- Defining the requirements for a comprehensive Translator, including its architecture and development path that will catalyze getting more treatments to more patients more quickly.
Are non-awardees able to participate in the NCATS-organized quarterly workshops with the intent of learning more about challenges in this effort and identifying means of partnering on possible solutions?
While awardees are required to participate in the quarterly workshops, non-awardees may be invited by NCATS to participate.
What types and sources of data will be included in the Biomedical Data Translator? Who will identify those data types and sources?
The Biomedical Data Translator will integrate multiple types of existing data sources, including objective signs and symptoms of disease, drug effects, and intervening types of biological data relevant to understanding pathophysiology. Each data type must be comprehensive (e.g., all diseases, all pathways, all SNPs). Examples of the data types that could be included are listed in the Appendix of the FY 2016 funding announcement (PDF - 134KB). In the technical feasibility assessment and architecture design phase of the Translator program, the awardees will identify high-value data sources that would be needed for a comprehensive Translator, as well as a means to evaluate the validity and utility of those data.
Will software written as part of this program be open source?
NCATS intends to require participation in a program-directed source code repository and the publication of that source code, without undue burden on its reuse by others. The goal of this programmatic effort is to produce data, software and tools that are open source and completely publicly available for any user without requirement to subscribe to proprietary resources or tools to be used.
What are the intellectual property requirements regarding inventions made under this funding opportunity?
NCATS will be assigned rights, title and interests to any invention(s) made by the awardee resulting from research under the NCATS Biomedical Data Translator program. This is to assure that patents directed to inventions made under this program cannot be used to block access by the research community. Note that the policies governing other programs at NIH are independent of the NCATS Biomedical Data Translator program. For more information on policies that apply particularly to this FY 2016 funding opportunity, please review the Biomedical Data Translator: Technical Feasibility Assessment and Architecture Design Project (OT3) (PDF - 134KB).
What is the nature and extent of collaborations for this program?
NCATS expects that this two-year period will be intensely collaborative among research partners and NIH staff, and that the unrestricted exchange of source code and software tools written as part of this program will be essential to a successful outcome. Demonstration projects will address an existing challenge, gap or barrier to the development of the Translator. NCATS anticipates that all awardees will contribute at a minimum intellectually to all aspects of the feasibility assessment and architecture design challenges.