The National Institutes of Health announced major investments to shift biomedical research toward human-based technologies, marking what the agency described as its largest push yet to move away from animal models.
The NIH is funding 10 construction projects across nine states totaling $88 million to advance what researchers call New Approach Methodologies, or NAMs, which include organ-on-a-chip devices and human organoid models. The projects will support research on chronic disease, cancer, obesity, rare childhood diseases, and environmental health.
A separate competition will distribute more than $7 million in awards for quantum-enabled technologies that can improve detection and measurement in lab-based research systems used for drug safety and toxicity testing.
The NIH also plans to establish a laboratory at its Clinical Center that will combine standardized human organoid models, robotics, artificial intelligence, and advanced data systems to test research questions on reproducible human biological systems. The agency is recruiting grant reviewers with expertise in human-based science to strengthen peer review of projects using the new methodologies, and has requested input from funded institutions on the feasibility of annual public reporting of vertebrate animal use in NIH-funded research.