ATCC, the world’s premier biological materials management and standards organization, today announced a seven-year contract from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to continue the management of the BEI Resources Program. NIAID has made an initial award of over $21.5 million, with further funding expected if all project milestones are met. This contract will merge the NIH HIV Reagent Program with the BEI Resources Program under the Biological and Emerging Infections Research Resources Program (BEI-RRP) umbrella. ATCC has managed the BEI Resources Program since 2003 and the NIH HIV Reagent Program since 2020. This important merger will allow researchers to have streamlined access to all priority pathogens for human health under one program.
“Through our successful collaboration with NIAID, we have helped consolidate ten other repositories that provide critical materials to the infectious disease research community,” said ATCC chairman and CEO Raymond H. Cypess, DVM, Ph.D. “At ATCC, we understand why curated, high-quality biomaterials, reagents, and products are critical to achieving credible research results. We also recognize why streamlining access to these items is essential so researchers can develop the diagnostic tests, vaccines, and therapies needed to improve human health.”
The BEI-RRP will continue to serve as a vital centralized repository of quality-assured organisms, reagents, tools, services, and information related to the NIAID research portfolio. Priority infectious diseases supported by BEI-RRP include Category A, B, and C priority pathogens, emerging infectious diseases, HIV/AIDS, and non-pathogenic microbes. These priorities may change as scientific research and public health needs shift. At the discretion of NIAID, it will also be a resource for materials produced by other government-supported research projects and service programs.
Under the management of ATCC, the BEI-RRP will receive, acquire, authenticate, produce, preserve, store, deaccession, dispose, and distribute most organisms and reagents. The program is expected to serve approximately 15,000 registered researchers from the US and other countries and will include approximately 17,000 unique items in its online catalog.
“Over the past 20 years, we have built a solid rapport with NIAID based on our expertise in biological resource development and management,” said Rebecca Bradford, MBA, MS, Vice President of Government Programs within ATCC Federal Solutions. “In doing so, BEI Resources has become instrumental to public health by providing the roadmap and capability to supply critical reagents in response to infectious disease events, resulting in accelerated medical countermeasures. We look forward to continuing to support NIAID’s global health efforts.”
This project has been funded in whole or in part with federal funds from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health, and Human Services under Contract No. 75N93024C00001.
Learn more here.