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NHGRI Affiliated Centers

NHGRI, in collaboration with other components of the National Institutes of Health, is closely associated with several major centers involved in genome research. These affiliated centers are:

Center for Inherited Disease Research [cidr.jhmi.edu]

The Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) is a centralized facility established to provide genotyping and statistical genetics services for investigators seeking to identify genes that contribute to human disease. CIDR concentrates primarily on multifactorial hereditary disease although linkage analysis of single gene disorders can also be accommodated. CIDR was established in 1996 as a joint effort by eight institutes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Three additional institutes joined the effort in 1999, and another in 2000. Mouse genotyping services were added in 2000. An application for CIDR Services is welcome from any investigator, world-wide. Access to CIDR is through a peer-review process.

The Center currently processes ~24,000 samples per year and generates ~11,000,000 short tandem repeat polymorphism (STRP) genotypes. Over the past year, the Center has acquired the technology and the sample and information management systems to allow high-throughput single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, both for genome-wide scans and for custom fine-mapping projects. In the immediate future, CIDR will maintain its ability to do genome scanning for ~24,000 samples per year, providing either STRP or SNP genotyping to its investigators. CIDR has also developed the capacity to allow fine mapping with SNPs in an additional ~90,000 samples (projected) as well as, eventually, whole genome association studies.

The facility is supported through a five year, $115 million federal contract (number N01-HG-72096) to The Johns Hopkins University (JHU) with Dr. David Valle of the JHU Institute of Genetic Medicine as Principal Investigator. Dr. Lawrence C. Brody of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) serves as CIDR's Chief Scientific Officer. Ms. Gloria Dunnigan, NHGRI, serves as the government Project Officer.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Chemical Genomics Center [ncgc.nih.gov]

Established in 2004, the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) will apply the tools of small molecule screening and discovery to the development of chemical probe research tools, for use in the study of protein and cell functions, and biological processes relevant to physiology and disease. NCGC will optimize biochemical, cellular and model organism-based assays submitted by the biomedical research community; perform automated high-throughput screening (HTS); and perform chemistry optimization on confirmed hits to produce chemical probes for dissemination to the research community.

State-of-the-art cheminformatics methods will be applied to the discovery and characterization of the chemical probes. Pharmacological, transcript/proteome profiling and genetic approaches will be taken to understand the activities of small molecule probes in biological systems.

National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Sequencing Center [nisc.nih.gov]

The NIH Intramural Sequencing Center (NISC), established in 1997, is a multi-disciplinary genomics facility that emphasizes the generation and analysis of DNA sequence. In addition to providing investigators at the NIH access to large-scale DNA sequencing, NISC plays a major role in several efforts related to the Human Genome Project. These include a Comparative Vertebrate Sequencing Initiative, the ENCODE Project, and the Mammalian Gene Collection Program.

• NIH Intramural Sequencing Center (NISC) 10th Anniversary Symposium
  To commemorate NISC's 10th anniversary, the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) held a one-day symposium on Oct. 16, 2007 in the Masur Auditorium of the Clinical Center, on the Bethesda, Maryland campus.

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Last Reviewed: June 16, 2008