The NIH Common Fund has teamed up with NASA’s Tournament Lab to launch the Reduction to Practice prize, a competition that invites innovative New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) solutions from teams who can successfully demonstrate implementation of integrated human-based solutions in a practical and usable form within a 3-year period.
The Reduction to Practice Challenge Prize tasks innovators in an open competition to accelerate technological development of NAMs platform and translate their products into practice. The goal of this challenge is to accelerate and catalyze near-ready integrated, or "combinatorial" NAM platforms that use different methods to answer a question about human disease or biology and that can be submitted to the Complement-ARIE Validation and Qualification Network (VQN), managed by the Foundation for NIH.
Phase 1 submissions were required to include a clear description of intended use for the proposed combinatorial NAM solution and a research plan that demonstrated feasibility to refine the solution to a usable form within the timeframe of the Challenge.
Phase 1 Winners provided strong early data, had an intended use for their platform, and provided clear project development plans for future phases of the Challenge. They were announced in a public webinar on July 20th, 2026 and are eligible to compete in Phase 2 of the Challenge.
Phase 1 Winners
Predictive Brain Combinatorial NAM, submitted by Massachusetts General Hospital
- Combining vTIME and AI for IO Drug CRS Prediction, submitted by Qureator Inc.
- Human Lung Models for Anti-Fibrotic Drug Testing, submitted by Wake Forest University Health Sciences
- Combinatorial NAM for Human Atherosclerosis Model, submitted by Endomimetics Inc.
- CAR-T Immunotherapy Clinical Trials on a Chip, submitted by CAR-T Chips Team
- AI-integrated human skin immune organoids, submitted by Stanford University
- Combinatorial Human Bone Remodeling NAM Platform, submitted by University of Massachusetts - Amherst
- PACE-IT: Immune-Cardiac NAM for Med Device Testing, submitted by University of Minnesota
- High-Throughput Human Tissue Remodeling & Toxicity, submitted by First State Click-Chem Solutions
- Combinatorial NAM for Endometriosis Drug Efficacy, submitted by VeriSIM Life, Inc.
- Multi-Brain Region Assembloid Combinatorial Models, submitted by Regenerative Research Foundation
- Multiorgan Predictive Biologic Toxicity Framework, submitted by Biopico Systems Inc.
- Human Brain Organoids to Predict DNT, submitted by Bioprinting Laboratories Inc.
- Precision dosing of oligonucleotide therapeutics, submitted by Javelin Biotech Inc.
- NeuroTraX-AI, submitted by Frontier Bio Corporation
- AI-Driven Antibody Repurposing for New Therapies, submitted by Wake Forest University Health Sciences
- LIVER-COMBINE: A Human Relevant NAM Platform, submitted by Liver-Combine Consortium
- Gut Feelings: A GI Toxicity Prediction Engine, submitted by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
- Plasticity Biomarkers in Human Cortical Organoids, submitted by 28bio Inc.
- MAJIC: The Future of Human Joint Drug Testing, submitted by CellField Technologies Inc.
Read the Phase 1 Winner Summaries
