SUPPORT FOR THE BIOMARKERS REFLECTING INFLAMMATION AND NUTRITIONAL DETERMINANTS OF ANEMIA PROJECT

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development

Investigators

Abstract

This project supports ten cooperative agreement (U01) grants addressing key aspects of the iron/malaria question. With additional resources that have been made available via co-funding from NIH?s ODS and NICHD, the Iron and Malaria Project also conducted two independent projects: 1) a collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop standards to be applied to the harmonization of soluble transferrin receptor (sTfr) assay which has emerged has a high priority biomarker for iron assessment globally, and 2) a collaboration with CDC and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition to utilize 17 country national nutrition datasets to look at the impact of inflammation on biomarkers of iron and other nutrients and to identify other determinants (aside from iron) of anemia. The project is called Biomarkers Reflecting Inflammation and Nutritional Determinants of Anemia (BRINDA). The outputs from the BRINDA project have already been incorporated into a WHO Working Group for the use of ferritin as a biomarker of iron for populations.