Notice Number: NOT-HL-08-103

Key Dates
Release Date: October 30, 2007

Issued by
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (www.nhlbi.nih.gov)

Participating Organizations
NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, (http://neuroscienceblueprint.nih.gov/)
National Cancer Institute (NCI), (http://www.cancer.gov)
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), (http://nccam.nih.gov/)
National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), (http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/)
National Eye Institute (NEI), (http://www.nei.nih.gov/)
National Institute on Aging (NIA), (http://www.nia.nih.gov/)
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), (http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), (http://www.nibib.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/)
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), (http://www.nidcd.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), (http://www.nidcr.nih.gov/)
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), (http://www.nida.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/)
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), (http://www.nigms.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), (http://www.ninds.nih.gov/)
National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), (http://ninr.nih.gov/ninr/)

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) will now participate in PAR-07-426 (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-07-426.html), “Sharing Data and Tools: Federation using the BIRN and caBIG Infrastructures (R01).”  This PAR encourages researchers to use either the caBIG™ or BIRN infrastructures to share data and tools by federating software tools under these infrastructures or using either infrastructure to federate significant data sets. 

NHLBI will support proposals for federating software tools or data sets through the CardioVascular Research Grid (CVRG) infrastructure (http://www.cvrgrid.org/). The CVRG (R24HL085343) is a distributed community resource for multi-scale cardiovascular data integration and discovery that leverages the software infrastructure developed as part of both the BIRN and caBIG™. The CVRG is led by Dr. Raimond Winslow at the Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with Dr. Mark Ellisman (University of California, San Diego) and Dr. Joel Saltz (Ohio State University).   The research of the D. W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is the initial CVRG testbed project, ensuring that the infrastructure developed by the CVRG is useful to biomedical researchers.

The CVRG is developing open-source middleware (CVRG-Core) for managing multi-scale cardiovascular data in a grid environment.  CVRG-Core will provide caBIG™ inter-operable databases for managing multiple types of data. To complement these multi-scale data management tools, the CVRG is also developing new methods for analyzing heart imaging data, leveraging BIRN tools and infrastructure.  Users of the CVRG will be able to download and install CVRG-Core and in so doing become a node of the CVRG, disseminate their own data and access other data on the CVRG, and make use of data analysis tools deployed on the CVRG, thus facilitating collaborative research to improve our understanding of and our ability to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease. More information regarding the CVRG may be found at http://www.cvrgrid.org/.

The full text of this announcement can be accessed at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-07-426.html