NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE

The Division of Translational Toxicology (DTT) is an intramural division of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), National Institutes of Health. DTT uses traditional and cutting-edge approaches to better understand how factors in our environment may impact human health. Such approaches include identifying biomarkers of toxicity in different organs to evaluate the potential impacts of chemical agents of concern.

DTT requires support to generate robust summaries of transcriptional biomarkers of toxicity/disease in different tissues and organs. These summaries can then be used to characterize adversity in in vivo toxicity screens where gene expression is measured in a dose response format across multiple tissues. DTT is specifically interested in up/down-regulated organ/tissue transcriptional biomarkers of adversity (toxicity or disease) in mammalian models with an emphasis on rats.

Specific tissues for which biomarkers shall be identified and curated may include aorta, bone marrow, brain, cecum, colon, duodenum, epididymis, esophagus, eye, Harderian gland, heart, ileum, jejunum, kidney, liver, lung, lymph node, mammary gland, ovary, pancreas, parathyroid gland, peripheral nerve, pituitary, prostate, salivary gland, seminal vesicle, skeletal muscle, and skin.

Genes shall be identified with associated publications cited along with known eliciting agents (i.e., chemical treatments, dietary modifications, genetic models). Once a gene is identified, upstream mechanistic processes shall be curated to explain the response of each gene. The mechanistic curation shall ideally be organ/tissue specific but may also be more generalizable.