National Institutes of Health
BIRN is sponsored by the National Center for Research Resources, a unit of the Bethesda, Maryland-based National Institutes of Health (NIH) – which itself is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
NIH is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research. The agency provides almost $28 billion annually to investigate the causes, treatments, and cures for diseases and disorders ranging from rare conditions to the common cold. NIH operates 27 Institutes and Centers, employs 18,000 individuals, and supports researchers in every US state and around the globe.
NCRR
The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) provides laboratory scientists and clinical researchers with resources and training to understand, detect, treat and prevent a wide range of diseases. NCRR supports all aspects of translational and clinical research, connecting researchers, patients and communities across the nation through its funding and other activities.
In 2007, NCRR announced programs to encourage federation using BIRN and another NIH-sponsored infrastructure, and to help research groups share data and software tools with the public and expand existing biomedical ontologies. The programs are, respectively, PAR-07-426 Sharing Data and Tools: Federation using the BIRN and caBIG Infrastructures and PAR-07-425 Data Ontologies for Biomedical Research.
Grants are funded by various NIH Institutes, through NCRR, to help research groups share data and software tools with the public and expand existing biomedical ontologies. Please see Current Users or the NCRR site for more information.
