Roadmap for Medical Research
NCI's Participation in the NIH Roadmap
NIH Roadmap Transition to OPASI
Roadmap Inclusion Criteria
NCI Participation in the Roadmap and OPASI - NCI Points of Contact
Roadmap for Medical Research
Initiated in 2003, the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research is intended to provide an "incubator space" for programs that, due to their cross cutting relevance and complexity, warrant concerted attention from the NIH as a whole. The Roadmap program stimulates research and/or the development of research resources with the expectation that the specific initiatives will be completed within a 5-10 year timeframe or will transition out of the "incubator space" and become integral to specific NIH Institute and Center activities.
Current Roadmap Programs fall into three themes as follows:
Visit http://nihroadmap.nih.gov to learn more about the NIH Roadmap.
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NCI's Participation in the NIH Roadmap
NCI actively participates in the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, supporting and providing leadership and expertise to many important research initiatives.
- New Pathways to Discovery: Investments in molecular libraries and imaging, structural biology, nanomedicine, and bio-informatics and computational biology are advancing the cancer research agenda.
- NCI is leading the development of the Comprehensive Trans-NIH Molecular Imaging and Contrast Database (MICAD), a resource that will facilitate more rapid development of cancer imaging agents and provide oncologists with an efficient resource on all imaging agents for diagnosing cancer and monitoring treatment.
- NCI is managing one of the centers created by the NIH Roadmap National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBCs), an initiative designed to create a computational infrastructure for biomedical computing in the nation. Moreover, NCI has developed a complementary multidisciplinary computational models program through the NCI Integrative Cancer Biology Program.
- The NIH Roadmap program on Epigenomics intends to transform biomedical research through the development of publicly comprehensive reference epigenome maps, identification of new epigenetic marks, and the development of new technologies for comprehensive epigenomic analyses. In addition, NCI and the NIH Roadmap program will co-sponsor research projects designed to leverage the new information and methodologies developed through the program toward understanding the epigenetic contributions to cancer development. NCI staff members are active participants in the development of the five interrelated initiatives developed under this program.
- The NIH Roadmap Human Microbiome Project (HMP) aims to develop new approaches in data collecting, identifying, and cataloging technologies to examine associated microbiota in control and diseases epithelia tissues. The majority of cancers arise among epithelial tissues that are exposed to the microbial world. Once these technologies are mature, they will provide innovative predictive and exploratory platforms for cancer biologists to utilize in determining associations of microbiota in cancer development
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Research Teams of the Future: Developing interdisciplinary research teams of the future is critical to progress in cancer research.
- Since its creation, several NCI grantees have been recipients of the NIH Director Pioneer Award, an award to support exceptionally creative scientists who take innovative approaches to major challenges in biomedical research.
- NIH is funding nine interdisciplinary research consortia as a means of integrating aspects of different disciplines to address health challenges that have been resistant to traditional research approaches. Interdisciplinary research integrates elements of a wide range of disciplines, including basic research, clinical research, behavioral biology, and social sciences providing the scientist the opportunity to approach the problem in new ways. Three of the nine consortia (Northwest Genome Engineering Consortium, Genomic Based Drug Discovery, and the Oncofertility Consortia) focus on areas important to cancer.
- Re-engineering the Clinical Research Enterprise: This NIH Roadmap effort is addressing the need to build better integrated networks and academic centers linked to community-based health care providers.
- The NIH Roadmap initiative Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) is a publicly available Web-based resource currently under development that can be used to measure key health symptoms and health related quality of life (HRQL) domains such as pain, fatigue, depression, cognitive function, and illness impact. This project, in which NCI has had significant involvement, is a step forward to improving our ability to measure the burden of cancer and to identify effective treatments to reduce pain and suffering.
- The Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs), created to accelerate the translation of basic discoveries into improved therapies and clinical practice, to a large extent parallel the organization and philosophy of the NCI cancer center program.
- The NCI clinical trials system has been a model for many research institutions in clinical and translational research.
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NIH Roadmap Transition to OPASI
In 2005, NIH established the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI) to coordinate the planning of strategic scientific initiatives with assessment and management of the overall NIH research portfolio. OPASI is expected to enhance the way that NIH identifies and funds cutting-edge research, providing a framework to support transparent and adaptive priority-setting process for identifying areas of scientific and health improvement opportunities, and to support regular trans-NIH scientific planning and initiatives.
NIH Common Fund for Shared Needs
Building on the NIH Roadmap concept, NIH established the "common fund" to support new initiatives over time. Created to serve as an intellectual space with a focus on trans-NIH initiatives, the Strategic Initiatives component of OPASI will support emerging areas of science, provide resources to pilot new ideas, and incubate these ideas into areas of research and study that can survive on their own.
Visit http://opasi.nih.gov for more information on the OPASI and Common Fund.
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Roadmap Inclusion Criteria
The overarching goal of all Roadmap initiatives is to accelerate the discovery and translation of scientific knowledge into public health benefits. The Roadmap is conceived of as a five- to ten-year "incubator space" for NIH initiatives that meet all of the following criteria:
- Is the proposed initiative truly transforming - could it dramatically affect how biomedical and/or behavioral research is conducted over the next decade?
- Will the outcomes from the proposed initiatives synergistically promote and advance the individual missions of NIH ICs to benefit health?
- Does the proposed initiative require participation from NIH as a whole and/or does it address an area(s) of science that does not clearly fall within the mission of any one IC or OD program office?
- Is the proposed initiative something that no other entity is likely or able to do, and is there a public health benefit to having the results of the research in the public domain?
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NCI Participation in the Roadmap and OPASI - NCI Points of Contact
Numerous NCI staff have been actively involved in the Roadmap initiatives, providing scientific and technical expertise and staff support to many of the areas of science that align with the NCI mission. For more information about participating NCI staff, see NCI Contacts for NIH Roadmap for Medical Research.
NCI points of contact by coordinating and leadership committees:
NIH Institute and Centers Director Meetings Related to Roadmap: Dr. John Niederhuber, Director, NCI;
Roadmap Institute and Center Liaison (RICL) Committee: Dr. Dinah Singer, Director, NCI Division of Cancer Biology and Ms. Anne Tatem, NCI Roadmap Coordinator, DCB
OPASI Working Group (OPASI WG): Dr. Robert Croyle, Director, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences
Questions: Contact Anne Tatem tatema@mail.nih.gov.
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