In response to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) request for ideas for Common Fund / Roadmap Trans-NIH Strategic Initiatives, the Heart Rhythm Society, through its Health Policy Committee/Research Subcommittee, submitted four proposals:

1. Multi-system approach to heart rhythm disorders initiative: to develop inter-institute collaborations to accelerate the understanding and treatment of heart rhythm disorders, leading causes of mortality, morbidity and health-care utilization in the United States

2. Environmental impact program: to develop a research framework to study the impact of environmental pollutants, chemicals and radiation on human health and disease

3. Microelectronics integrative physiology initiative: to develop open-source internet-based computational models, simulations and tools that may be used by researchers to generate and test hypotheses for human and/or animal experimentation

4. National computational simulation resource: to leverage existing strengths in fundamental biological sciences, bioengineering and computer science

Read the Heart Rhythm Society's full submission (PDF, 156K)

About the NIH Common Fund / Roadmap

The NIH Common Fund / Roadmap was created by the NIH in 2004 and enacted into law by Congress through the 2006 NIH Reform Act to support cross-cutting, trans-NIH programs. The Common Fund / Roadmap supports programs that address fundamental knowledge gaps, develop transformative tools and technologies, and/or foster innovative approaches to complex problems. Programs are supported for a limited duration of 5–10 years, which keeps the fund nimble and able to respond to new opportunities and emerging challenges. It also allows the NIH to regularly test new ways of fostering innovative science.

The Heart Rhythm Society proposals were developed in response to the following criteria supplied by NIH:

• The proposals are truly transforming — they may dramatically affect how biomedical and/or behavioral research is conducted over the next decade.
• Outcomes from the proposed initiatives will synergistically promote and advance the individual missions of the Institutes and Centers to benefit health.
• The proposed initiatives require participation from NIH as a whole and/or address areas of science that do not clearly fall within the mission of any one IC or OD program office.
• The proposed initiatives relate to material that no other entity is likely or able to do, and provide a public health benefit to having the results of the research in the public domain.

About the Health Policy Committee and Research Subcommittee

The Health Policy Committee’s role is to promote high quality patient care and represent the legal, regulatory clinical and basic research interests and educational goals of heart rhythm specialists in the U.S. The Research Subcommittee’s role is to promote high quality basic, translational and clinical research and represent the health policy interests of heart rhythm scientists in the U.S.