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Health & Bioscience

As a non-regulatory agency, NIST provides a solid foundation of measurement assurance that enables innovations in health and bioscience: Medical researchers and manufacturers of diagnostics and treatments use NIST research, calibrations, and standards development leadership to be able to efficiently develop new products, meet regulatory requirements, and ensure efficacy and safety of treatments.

NIST measurement research in emerging bioscience areas, including regenerative medicine, the microbiome, and synthetic biology helps rapidly advance our understanding of biology—from genomics and engineered biology, to bioinformatics and nutrition—and provide the basis for industries to harness these advances for new medical technologies.

NIST calibrations and reference data also provide the medical community with critical tools that ensure the accuracy and efficacy of numerous diagnostics and tests.  For example,  NIST’s ionizing radiation standards and calibration services are essential to hundreds of millions of annual medical imaging procedures (x-ray, mammography, magnetic resonance, etc.) in the U.S. as well as for radiation-based cancer treatments. 

NIST and the Promise of Precision Medicine

NIST and the Promise of Precision Medicine
NIST and the Promise of Precision Medicine
Find out more about how the National Institute of Standards and Technology is playing a pivotal role in helping to define the measurements and standards needed to ensure the promise of precision medicine.

News

Developing an Exposure Notification System to Blunt the Spread of COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

I am part of a grassroots effort at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that is developing an exposure notification system for pandemics in general, though we hope it could be used in at least a limited fashion during the current COVID-19 pandemic. We are fortunate at NIST to have all the expertise required to tackle this multidisciplinary problem, solutions to which have the

NIST Scientists Use DNA Origami on a Chip to Detect Biomolecules

NIST Awards $15 Million to ASTM International to Establish Standardization Center of Excellence

NIST Awards Up to $1.5 Million to Support Development of Regenerative Medicine Standards Curricula