ICCVAM Biennial Report 2020-2021

Throughout 2020 and 2021, NIEHS provided funding for small businesses developing technologies of interest to the Tox21 program. The funding was offered as part of the 2020 and 2021 Omnibus Solicitations of NIH, Centers for Disease Control, and FDA for small business grant applications to support development and commercialization of innovative technologies. Technologies supported by NIEHS included improved or expanded testing methods for toxicity screening, computational approaches for predictive toxicology, and other technologies such as alternative or improved methods for fixing and preserving tissues.

In addition to funding offered via the Omnibus Solicitations, NIEHS offers grants to support development of specific types of technologies targeting specific endpoints. Funding offered in 2020 and 2021 supported development of:

• Chemical testing resources and approaches that reflect the genetic diversity among human populations, including panels of human or rodent cells or cell lines, lower organism strains with well-characterized genetic backgrounds, or in silico approaches to enhance the ability to characterize the effects of genetic variation in toxicity testing (December 2019, submissions open through February 2020).
• Application of artificial intelligence and machine learning for advancing environmental health sciences (December 2020).