Toolkits for Dissemination of Genomic Technologies

The National Human Genome Research institute (NHGRI) funds wet-lab technology development across its portfolios, resulting in invention of innovative methods to interrogate and understand the genome. However, there is often a gap between the technology and methods development in individual inventor labs and the wide-spread deployment of these approaches to the broader scientific community. The Toolkits for Dissemination of Genomic Technologies initiative will create a pathway to lower this barrier to technology adoption by supporting the dissemination efforts of tool and technology developers in the form of an integrated toolkit containing the necessary components and information required to implement the technology. A kit would include custom reagents and/or hardware along with annotated and updated protocols, computational pipelines, and if appropriate, would be accompanied by hands-on methods training and workshops for the scientific community. Using this dissemination approach, developers would gain independent validation of their technologies and feedback from users. Feedback from toolkit users would then be applied by developers to inform further maturation of these genomic technologies, priming methods for more wide-spread adoption by the scientific community.