On January 16, 1998, the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS, NIH) released a new program announcement that may be of great interest to readers of this page. Titled Supplements for the Study of Complex Biological Systems (PA-98-024), this initiative aims to support "new quantitative approaches to the study of complex, fundamental biological processes by encouraging non-traditional collaborations across disciplinary lines." They aim to do this by providing a creative new kind of supplement to existing NIGMS grants.
NIGMS clearly recognizes that modern biomedical research will increasingly be confronted with problems of enormous complexity. They are also keenly aware that there often are formidable budgetary obstacles to development of cross-disciplinary collaborations, and they have offered this insightful initiative to encourage and facilitate the process. BioInformatics Services fully supports this initiative and we would love to explore the possibilities for a collaborative project with your research group under the auspices of this new NIGMS Program Announcement.
If you have been searching for a support mechanism that would permit you to undertake synthetic, integrative, computational approaches to your area of biological expertise, this is the ideal time to act. Take a look at the section on Partnering and Outsourcing below and especially at how BioInformatics Services can help you take advantage of this new initiative.