The NIH gets singular

摘要

The challenges of single-cell analysis have caught the attention of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). The agency has launched a programme to fund advances in single-cell research, with a budget of around US$90 million over five years from the NIH Common Fund, which backs science that crosses disciplines. Grant applications are due early next year, and the NIH expects to make the first awards by September 2012, says Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, a programme officer at the NIH campus in Bethesda,rnMaryland. The programme will fund new techniques in areas ranging from microscopy to biochemistry, and foster their commercialization. The NIH also sees a big need for tools to examine cells in their natural environment.