Our Impact on Tools and Technologies

The University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute Microphysiology Systems Database is designed in part to capture experimental information on organ models and the data generated from them. (University of Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute Photo/Richard DeBiasio)

There are more than 10,000 known diseases, but only 5% of them have a treatment or cure. If we focus on developing new drugs for one disease at a time, it will take thousands of years to find therapeutic answers for every disease. 

To speed new treatments, NCATS has created therapeutic tools and technologies that work for many diseases. Our experts look for what’s similar among groups of diseases to find shared solutions for all. For example, different rare diseases can share a common genetic or biochemical pathway that goes awry. We are using that knowledge to streamline the development of approaches with the potential of treating many diseases. These include cell-based treatments, gene-targeted treatments and new uses for existing treatments. 

We also overcome scientific barriers common to all diseases, such as research models that poorly predict how a promising medicine will work in people. Our approaches for making more predictive drug screening models have spurred the evolution of the field, led to new models for dozens of diseases, and has started to open up bottlenecks in the drug development pipeline.

Explore All Areas of Our Impact