NCATS invites innovators and multi-expert teams to participate in the NCATS ASPIRE Reduction-to-Practice Challenge. The ultimate result of the NCATS ASPIRE Program under the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative, is the development of a platform that a wide spectrum of scientists can use to advance their translational science relevant to development and preclinical testing of new and safer treatments of pain, opioid use disorder and overdose.
The goal of this Challenge is to combine the best solutions and develop a working platform that integrates four component areas — Integrated Database, Electronic Synthetic Chemistry Portal, Predictive Algorithms and Biological Assays — culminating in the development of better, more effective and nonaddictive treatments. NCATS anticipates that this integrated platform ultimately can be generalized to address many of the roadblocks in automated chemistry.
Stage 1 of the Reduction-to-Practice Challenge opens Nov. 30, 2020, and submissions are due by Feb. 28, 2021, at 5 p.m. EST. The three stages of the open prize competition are (1) planning; (2) prototype development and milestones delivery; and (3) prototype delivery, validation and testing. Winners of each stage will be invited to participate in the next stage.