NIH proposes $20M to fund research on MIS-C

The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced research funding to identify patients at high risk for developing multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a condition thought to be a severe complication of COVID-19. The NIH will award up to $20 million to successful research proposals over four years.

MIS-C is a severe and sometimes fatal inflammation of organs and tissues, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, and eyes. The NIH funding seeks to encourage studies of genetic, immune, viral, environmental, and other factors that influence how severe a case of COVID-19 will be and the chances of it turning into MIS-C.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) project, Predicting Viral-Associated Inflammatory Disease Severity in Children with Laboratory Diagnostics and Artificial Intelligence (PreVAIL kIds), is part of NIH's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative to spur innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing.

Studies funded through PreVAIL kIds will evaluate genes and other biomarkers in COVID-19 pediatric cases, as well as determine how the virus interacts with its host and the immune system response. Researchers will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to sort and categorize data they acquire.