The Complement Animal Research In Experimentation (Complement-ARIE) Program is funded by the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund and aims to accelerate the development, standardization, validation, and use of new, human-based models – such as organ-on-a-chip systems, tiny lab-grown tissues called organoids, and in silico models – for the study of disease or the testing of new drugs. These new models, know as New Approach Methodologies (NAMs), more accurately model human biology than conventional animal models while also reducing the need for animal testing in research.
The Complement-ARIE program relies on a broad group of contributing teams, as summarized below. Full details about all the contributors can be found here.
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NYU-Sage NAM Data Hub and Coordinating Center (NDHCC) (RFA-RM-24-013): The NDHCC is the central coordinating center for the overall Complement-ARIE program. As part of this, the NDHCC team is responsible for the NAMHub, the central repository to collect, organize, and share data and tools associated with these new methods within the Complement-ARIE consortium and with the scientific community. In addition, the NDHCC is responsible for defining standards for data reporting and model credibility; for ensuring interoperability, sustainability, and data reuse; and for developing tools to enable advanced data analytics and data sharing. The principal investigators (PIs) of the NDHCC are Gustavo Stolovitsy (Lead PI), David Fenyo, Stuart Katz, and Chang Yu of New York University School of Medicine and Jineta Banerjee of Sage Bionetworks.
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Validation and Qualification Network (VQN) (OTA-25-003): The VQN is tasked with working with regulatory authorities to accelerate the research and regulatory use of NAMs by developing standards and procedures for validating and qualifying NAMs. The VQN is led by PI Stacey Adam of the Foundation for the NIH.
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Comprehensive NAMs Technology Development Centers (TDCs) (RFA-RM-24-010): NIH selected the seven TDCs listed below to develop combinatorial NAMs across several areas of scientific need.
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TDC Name |
Full Project Title |
Lead PI |
Institution |
|---|---|---|---|
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3D-MOFIB |
An Integrated Multiorgan Platform of 3D Microtissues to Model and Understand Interindividual Drug Susceptibility in Fibrotic Pathologies |
Marc Ferrer |
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), NIH |
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NAMs for Gynecology |
NAMs for Clinical Translation of Therapeutics for Systemic Gynecology Diseases |
Linda G. Griffith |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) |
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NAMs-Decisions Center |
NAMs-Decisions Center: New Approach Methods for Decisions on Industrial and Consumer-Use Chemicals |
Ivan Rusyn |
Texas A&M AgriLife Research / Texas A&M VMBS |
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DROIDp |
Lena Smirnova |
Johns Hopkins University (Bloomberg School of Public Health) |
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GI NAMs / CuSTOM |
Patient-specific, combinatorial NAMs for gastrointestinal diseases and drug response prediction |
James M. Wells |
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center |
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Cardiac NAMs / CTiD |
Advancing Personalized Cardiac Organoids – Converging In Vitro, In Chemico, and In Silico Models |
Joseph C. Wu |
Stanford University (Stanford Cardiovascular Institute) |
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Musculoskeletal NAMs |
Technology development center for integrative physiologic models of the human musculoskeletal system |
Shrike (Yu Shrike) Zhang |
Brigham and Women's Hospital (Harvard Medical School affiliate) |
Today’s Complement-ARIE program builds on the 2023-2024 Complement-ARIE Challenge, which aimed to catalyze innovation in human-based research solutions. Below are the winners of that Challenge.
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Team Captain |
Project Title |
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Zev Gartner, University of California, San Francisco |
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Riccardo Barrile, University of Cincinnati |
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Ken Chen, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center |
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Weiqiang Chen, New York University |
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X. Lucas Lu, University of Delaware |
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Alexander Tropsha, Predictive, LLC. |
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Thomas Hartung, Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) |
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Shantanu Singh, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard |
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Brian Johnson, Michigan State University |
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Lei Yin, Reprotox Biotech LLC |
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Carlos Ramon Ponce, Harvard Medical School |
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Wei Tan, University of Colorado at Boulder |
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Thomas Luechtefeld, Insilica, LLC |
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David Kaplan, Tufts University |
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Hang Lin, University of Pittsburgh |
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Lena Smirnova, Johns Hopkins University |
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Deepak Rao, Brigham and Women’s Hospital |
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Rebecca Pompano, The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia |
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Ramkumar Menon, University of Texas Medical Branch |
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Huaxiao ‘Adam’ Yang, University of North Texas |