Notice Number: NOT-GM-06-106

Key Dates
Release Date: February 3, 2006

Issued by
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), (http://www.nigms.nih.gov/)

The purpose of this Notice is to announce that the NIGMS is modifying the mission of the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) program to reflect its increased role in planning and preparedness. The goal of MIDAS as stated in two Requests for Applications, RFA-GM-03-008 (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-GM-03-008.html) and RFA-GM-05-011 (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-GM-05-011.html), is to improve the nation's ability to respond to biological threats promptly and effectively. The National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council voted at its January 2006 meeting to clarify the program's direction as follows:

Vision Statement
As a collaborative network of scientists, MIDAS leads in researching the use of computational and mathematical models that will prepare the nation to respond to outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Mission Statement
MIDAS's mission is informed by the needs of policymakers and public health officials to have reliable and available computational and mathematical models to prepare for infectious disease outbreaks.

MIDAS's research mission includes computational and mathematical investigations of

• Dynamics of emergence and spread of pathogens and their products,
• Identification and surveillance of infectious diseases,
• Effectiveness and consequences of intervention strategies,
• Host/pathogen interactions, and
• Ecological, climatic, and evolutionary dimensions of infectious diseases outbreaks.

MIDAS's informatics mission includes

• Developing large-scale computational resources,
• Creating information and knowledge management tools,
• Formulating analytical and statistical approaches,
• Creating a repository for the deposition of models, results, and information,
• Acquiring a variety of data relevant to modeling, and
• Testing and validating of models.

MIDAS's collaborative mission includes

• Catalyzing discussions among modelers, policymakers, and the public health community that involve setting priorities and designing studies,
• Taking leadership to ensure that MIDAS software is translated into useful tools for the public health community,
• Sharing results and resources with the MIDAS network, policymakers, public health officials, and the scientific community, and
• Taking advantage of the intellectual capital within MIDAS to undertake projects that would be impossible for any single group.

Contact
Irene Anne Eckstrand, Ph.D.
Scientific Director, MIDAS
Telephone: 301-594-0943
Email: [email protected]