The National Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) has been awarded $3.7M by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support continued national leadership with the recovery and distribution of human organs and tissues for medical research.

This new three-year award for NDRI’s Human Tissue and Organs for Research Resource (HTORR) Program parent grant extends the NIH’s ongoing funding support for HTORR to 35 consecutive years. The HTORR Program supports investigators across the full spectrum of research with access to normal and diseased human biospecimens. The parent award is funded by the NIH Office of the Director, Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP) and receives additional co-funding from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

“NDRI is grateful to the NIH for the support of our expanding HTORR program,” said Bill Leinweber, President and CEO of NDRI. “It is a privilege for NDRI to build on our long partnership with the NIH as a resource for human biospecimens to meet the evolving needs of scientists.”

Through the HTORR program, NDRI provides NIH-funded investigators with donated normal and diseased human biospecimens for their research.  This grant renewal includes multiple enhancements such as a new Pilot Program, Pathology Service Options, and a Pathology Consultant Committee.

“The enhancements establish a new foundation that will bolster HTORR’s capabilities to meet the emerging needs of the present and next generation of groundbreaking scientific studies,” said Thomas Bell, MS PhD, NDRI’s Chief Scientific Officer and principal investigator for the HTORR grant. “Encompassing additional service and support options along with a new mechanism to incorporate more underrepresented and junior investigators into the program demonstrate the NIH and NDRI’s commitments to sustain HTORR as a leading research resource for the scientific community.”