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NIH National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NCBC)

RFA Number: RFA-RM-09-002 (formerly RFA-RM-04-022)
Participating Organization: National Institutes of Health
(Note: This funding is part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. All NIH Institutes and Centers participate in Roadmap initiatives.)
Frequently Asked Questions See the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative (BISTI) web site.
Available Funds: $24.5 million in FY 2010 to fund up to seven projects
Technical Assistance Workshop:

October 28, 2004
Note: A comprehensive review of applicants’ questions, and responses to those questions, about the National Centers for Biomedical Computing funding announcement is provided in the video record of the workshop at:
http://videocast.nih.gov/launch.asp?12259

Letter of Intent Receipt Date: December 29, 2009
Application Receipt Date: January 8, 2010
Anticipated Award Date: September 1, 2010

Summary of Initiative

The Institutes and Centers (ICs) of the National Institutes of Health invite applications for specialized centers in the area of biomedical computing. The U54 mechanism will be used to create NIH National Centers for Biomedical Computing (NIH NCBCs). These centers, in conjunction with individual investigator awards, will create a networked national effort to build the computational infrastructure for biomedical computing in the nation, the National Program of Excellence in Biomedical Computing (NPEBC). The establishment of the NIH NCBC was called for in the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative report in 1999, and their need has been reaffirmed by more recent workshops. The NIH NCBC will be devoted to all facets of biomedical computing, from basic research in computational science to providing the tools and resources that biomedical and behavioral researchers need to do their work. In addition to carrying out fundamental research, it is expected that the NIH NCBC will play a major role in educating and training researchers to engage in biomedical computing.

To build the computational infrastructure for biomedical computing in the nation, the National Program will use a combination of NIH funding mechanisms that will be supported by multiple NIH Institutes and Centers. The central constituent of the NPBEC, the NIH NCBC, is the focus of this RFA. The NIH NCBC will provide tools and resources that biomedical and behavioral researchers can use at a variety of levels.

The NIH NCBCs will be partnerships bringing together three types of scientists:

  1. computational scientists, who invent and develop efficient and powerful languages, data structures, software architectures, hardware, and algorithms for solving biomedically significant computing problems;
  2. biomedical computational scientists, who adapt and deploy resources from computational science to solve significant biomedical problems; and
  3. experimental and clinical biomedical and behavioral researchers, who generate data that can be transformed into knowledge by computational simulation, analysis, modeling, data mining, and visualization.

Additional Information

For more details about this initiative, see the online NIH Guide for Grants & Contracts web site, which contains the complete text of this RFA, including eligibility criteria, application instructions, and review procedures. For additional information, contact:

John Whitmarsh, Ph.D.
Acting Director, Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
National Institutes of Health
45 Center Drive
Bethesda, MD 20892-6200
Phone: (301) 451-6446
E-mail: whitmarj@nigms.nih.gov

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This page last reviewed on November 5, 2012