Diabetes portal adds data, more powerful search tools

Friday, June 10, 2016

Detailed content now available to everyone.

What

The AMP Type 2 Diabetes Knowledge Portal online library and discovery engine has greatly expanded data and search capabilities to accelerate the pace of scientific advancement. Customizable and simplified navigation, along with aggregated data from more than 100,000 DNA samples from research supported by NIH and other institutions, encourage new understanding of diabetes by increasing users’ ability to share and evaluate content.

A product of NIH’s Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) for type 2 diabetes, the portal - which opened in 2015 - enables user-friendly exploration of international networks of human genetic information linked to type 2 diabetes. At present, researchers and the public can search for information by gene, genetic variant and region; access summaries of genetic variants; and run customized genetic analyses using versatile tools. Individual data will remain confidential.

Anyone can now query detailed data from the portal; previously, only approved researchers could access that content, while others could view aggregate results. A Google account is all that is needed to use the portal, which is also available in Spanish. Because the strength of the portal depends on community participation, people are encouraged to submit data, comments and other materials.

Now including data from European collaborators, administrators continue to expand the network to include more national and international content.

Funding for the portal is provided through NIDDK grants U01DK105554 and U54DK105566 to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and a Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) grant to the University of Michigan to support portal infrastructure and expansion of analytical and visualization tools. Additional support to Broad for the portal is provided by the Carlos Slim Foundation, Mexico City. The awards are part of a larger partnership of academic investigators, NIH and five pharmaceutical companies. AMP T2D was conceived to translate findings on genetic risk factors in type 2 diabetes into valid targets for new therapies or treatments and provide insights into the pathogenesis and heterogeneity of diabetes.

Who

Philip Smith, Ph.D., deputy director of NIDDK’s Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases, is available to comment.

Contact

To schedule an interview, please contact Krysten Carrera, 301-364-7336.

The NIDDK, a component of the NIH, conducts and supports research on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutrition and obesity; and kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases. Spanning the full spectrum of medicine and afflicting people of all ages and ethnic groups, these diseases encompass some of the most common, severe and disabling conditions affecting Americans. For more information about the NIDDK and its programs, see www.niddk.nih.gov.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health^®

###