NIH'sBig Data to Knowledgeinitiative and the advancement of biomedical informatics

Abstract

Two influential reports on data and computation from advisory committees to the NIH leadership resulted in important initiatives: (1) the report from the Working Group on Biomedical Computing for the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1999i led to the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative (BISTI), and (2) the more recent report from the Working Group on Data and Informatics for the ACD in 2012ii led to the Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) initiative.iii Several AMIA members participated in this working group. Both reports recommended strong support for data science and computation in biomedical sciences and healthcare. The BD2K initiative was launched at NIH in 2013 through the development of several focused workshops, calls for proposals for centers of excellence, for a data discovery index, for training programs, and through the creation of the new position of Associate Director of Data Sciences, reporting directly to the NIH director. According to Francis Collins, the charge is to “lead an NIH-wide priority initiative to take better advantage of the exponential growth of biomedical …