AMRM Home | AMRM Overview | AMRM Program Areas | Organizations & Resources | FAQ | Glossary
AMRM Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How do I participate in the NIST laboratory assurance programs?
A. General information about the programs can be found at http://www.nist.gov/mml/csd/qaps.cfm
. Information about the Health Assessment Measurements Quality Assurance Program can be found at https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/health-assessment-measurements-quality-assurance-program, and program registration information can be found at https://qa.nist.gov//hamqap/.
Q. Where can I find information about available methods and reference materials for specific dietary supplement ingredients?
A. There are many resources for supporting rigorous characterization of dietary supplements and their health effects, listed below are some efforts directly supported by the AMRM Program.
A curated selection of relevant publications on methods, validation reports, quality assurance, and reference material development can be searched on the Analytical Methods and Reference Materials Program Home Web page. Try searching for your analyte of interest, e.g. “vitamin D”, “ginkgo”, or “synephrine”.
AOAC International’s “Official Methods of Analysis,” a collection of chemical and microbiological methods and voluntary consensus standards, is available on the AOAC International Official Methods of Analysis Web page: http://www.eoma.aoac.org/. The AMRM Program has supported AOAC Stakeholder activities and the development of several dietary supplement relevant Official Methods of Analysis.
Certified reference materials for dietary supplement ingredients and metabolites are made available from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) through the AMRM Program.
Q. How do I find a specific NIST Standard Reference Material?
A. Go to http://www.nist.gov/srm/index.cfm and enter keywords for the analyte (e.g., “vitamin D”, “calcium”) or matrix (e.g., “ginkgo”, “serum”).
Q. Is funding available from the AMRM Program?
A. ODS uses a variety of mechanisms to fund AMRM Program work with public and private sector partners.
Interagency Agreements (IAAs) between NIH-ODS and other U.S. government entities such as the FDA, the USDA, and NIST support method development, reference material production, and laboratory quality assurance programs. IAAs are not available to businesses or academic researchers.
In partnership with other NIH Institutes and Centers (IC), ODS uses NIH Administrative Supplements to assist investigators with active NIH grants to perform validation studies of analytical methods. PA-18-818, the current Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), can be found at https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/pa-18-818.html.
For certain ODS-identified needs, AMRM uses government-wide procurement mechanisms to solicit proposals. General information about NIH acquisition processes can be found at http://oamp.od.nih.gov. A searchable web-based resource for government-wide solicitation announcements can be found at https://beta.sam.gov/. Searches for funding opportunities can be performed by using solicitation numbers, if known, or by agency. NIH opportunities can be found typing “Department of Health and Human Services/National Institutes of Health” in the agency search box. Potential keywords to narrow search results include “dietary”, “reference materials” and “analytical methods”.
Other Federal government agencies also make funding opportunities available. For example, NISTs funding and grants page:
http://www.nist.gov/director/grants/grants.cfm