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Health

NIST provides measurement assurance for biomedical stakeholders through the development of measurement tools for medical devices, clinical diagnostics, imaging tools and the characterization of complex biotherapeutics.

Key Accomplishments

  • Face coverings: In an effort to improve the fabric masks that people wear to slow the spread of COVID-19, NIST scientists have measured how well various fabrics filter out aerosols that might contain the virus. This research contributed to standards for fabric face masks that will give people information on how well their masks work.
  • Biopharmaceuticals: The NIST Monoclonal Antibody reference material is an intensively analyzed protein of over 20,000 atoms that researchers and manufacturers use when developing vaccines and treatments for cancer and other diseases. Also called the NISTmAb, this material promotes innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry and helps ensure the quality and safety of our drug supply.
  • Nutrition labeling: To help ensure the accuracy of nutrition labels, NIST manufactures over 30 food-based reference materials, including infant formula, baking chocolate, spinach and food oils. Labs use these reference materials to calibrate their instruments for measuring the carbohydrates, proteins, calories and other values listed on nutrition labels.
  • MRI calibration: The NIST phantom helps ensure that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines produce accurate results. Also called the “phannie,” this plastic sphere is about the size of a person’s head and contains contrast-enhancing agents and other materials that aid in calibrating MRI instruments.

The Research

Projects & Programs

GIAB Logo

Genome in a Bottle

Ongoing
Consortium goals: The Genome in a Bottle Consortium is a public-private-academic consortium hosted by NIST to develop the technical infrastructure (reference standards, reference methods, and reference data) to enable translation of whole human genome sequencing to clinical practice and innovations
Photo montage showing fill the airplane with fire-fighting foam, a spilled glass of wine on the tablecloth. Cleaning clothes and furniture from stains, Discarded Fast Food Wrappers Littered on Ground, wateproof jacket with water droplets on it. Jacket using the gore-tex technology.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

Ongoing
Perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) constitute a family of compounds that are distinguished by partial or complete fluorination of alkyl hydrocarbons. Dubbed “forever chemicals”, the unique chemistry of PFAS imparts a high level of stability, making the compounds resistant to

Cell-based Assay for Mechanistically-based Prediction of Cytoxicity

Ongoing
Ricin is a type 2 ribosome inactivating protein (RIP) belonging to the A-B family of toxins and is of particular interest because of its potential use as a biological weapon and the dearth of rapid and sensitive assays that could assist detection and decontamination. The ricin toxin inhibits protein
component 1

Consistency Analysis and Uncertainty in ‘omic Data

Ongoing
‘Omics is increasingly moving out of the laboratory and towards use in industrial and commercial applications. For instance, in biomanufacturing, there is a need for quality control when developing biotherapeutics, which will almost certainly require a machine-learning classifier to separate
View All Projects/Programs

Additional Resources Links

Publications

News

Jerilyn Izac sits at a lab bench with her hands inside a plastic shield, using a device to draw liquid from a plastic container into a tube.

I’m Using Measurement Science to Test Antibodies and Protect Us From Viruses

Imagine if for the next dangerous virus, we could quickly and easily test everyone’s levels of defenses — known as antibodies.
Read more
Freshly dissected tissue (lower left) and its pathology-prepared slide with identified tumor regions by a pathologist (upper left), and a pseudo-color image of hyperspectral dark-field microscopy (HSDFM) data cube (middle) region marked on the tissue images on the left.

Spotlight: Game-Changing Microscopy Technique for Identifying Cancerous Cells

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Cassie Stoffer smiles while wearing safety glasses and standing next to a large metal tank with many pipes and wires attached to it.

Spotlight: Cassie Stoffer Helps Run Calibration and Measurement Services Related to Magnetic Resonance

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A researcher's hands holding a vial in the lab are juxtaposed with a cannabis plant.

NIST Researchers to Test New Approach for Detecting Cannabis in Breath

Read more

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