New Data Hub Aims To Advance Alternatives To Animal Testing

A investigation squad astatine NYU Langone Health and Sage Bionetworks has been awarded a $25 cardinal assistance to found nan information hub and coordinating halfway for nan National Institutes of Health's Complement-Animal Research successful Experimentation (Complement-ARIE) program.

The ngo of Complement-ARIE is to velocity nan improvement of caller attack methodologies (NAMs). These lab- aliases computer-based testing approaches tin much accurately exemplary quality biology and complement aliases switch accepted animal investigation models. Technologies to beryllium developed see complex, often 3D, human-based compartment systems (such arsenic organoid aliases organ-on-a-chip platforms); computational, instrumentality learning, aliases artificial intelligence models; and cell-free biochemical assays for toxicology screenings.

The NIH grant to NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Sage is $5 cardinal a twelvemonth for 5 years, for a full of $25 million. The grant will found nan NYU-Sage NAMs Data Hub and Coordination Center (NYU-Sage NDHCC), which will alteration nan standardization, harmonization, and sharing of datasets—from molecular tests to 3D cultures to simulated organization outcomes—using a unreality architecture. The hub will service arsenic nan consortium's backbone for data, metadata, code, and computational models; supply AI-augmented information curation and a model for harmonizing NAMs information crossed nan consortium; and beryllium a root of analytical devices to thief researchers activity pinch datasets.

The NYU-Sage NDHCC will besides foster collaboration among each components of nan Complement-ARIE consortium done interactive workshops, benchmarking competitions for an extended organization of researchers, and engagement pinch constituencies vested successful nan advances of NAMs technologies.

A defining characteristic of nan NDHCC will beryllium its FAIR, Unified Schema for Interoperability of Ontologies successful NAMs (FUSION) framework, an attack to information standards that enables nan hub to accommodate its handling of multimodal information alongside nan quickly increasing NAMs field. FUSION integrates biomedical knowledge maps (ontologies) into a communal information model, ensuring that information from divers experimental and successful silico NAMs are interoperable and reusable.

"As portion of nan Complement-ARIE consortium, our associated squad will beforehand nan knowing of quality wellness and illness by coordinating nan afloat spectrum of information generated crossed nan consortium, transforming it into a assets fresh to thrust caller discoveries by our team, consortium members, and nan broader community," said Gustavo A. Stolovitzky, PhD, head of nan Biomedical Data Sciences Hub (Bio-DaSH) wrong nan Clinical and Translational Science Institute and professor successful nan Department of Pathology astatine NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Dr. Stolovitzky will beryllium nan contact-principal interrogator for nan caller information hub. The different main investigators are Jineta Banerjee, PhD, subordinate head of precocious information analytics astatine Sage Bionetworks; David Fenyo, PhD, professor astatine nan Institute for Systems Genetics astatine NYU Langone; Stuart D. Katz, MD, professor successful nan Department of Medicine astatine NYU Langone; and Chang Yu, PhD, professor successful nan Department of Population Health astatine NYU Langone.

Complement-ARIE besides includes grants that found respective exertion improvement centers astatine different institutions, each coordinated by nan information hub. These centers will create NAM technologies to reside areas of top technological need. The 3rd portion of nan grant-funded consortium will beryllium nan Validation and Qualification Network, a public-private business that draws connected manufacture and regulatory expertise to standardize criteria for validating NAMs.

The task is supported by backing from nan National Institutes of Health Common Fund, which supports cross-cutting programs expected to person precocious impact, nether assistance U24ES03837.