About

MorPhiC aims to develop a consistent catalog of molecular and cellular phenotypes for null alleles for every human gene by using in-vitro multicellular systems. The catalog will be made available for broad use by the biomedical community. The program will start with a Phase 1 to optimize available methods to create null alleles and measure their phenotypic effects in a target subset of 1,000 protein coding genes across the program. Phase 1 will also assess the scale limitations of such methods, develop common data formats and establish use cases for this catalog.

Systematically obtaining information about the molecular and cellular phenotypic effects of gene knockouts for all human genes would provide wide-ranging insights into their biological function. Such data would provide a foothold for understanding the mechanisms through which genes act to produce phenotypes and would help elucidate the roles and relationships of genes and regulatory elements in pathways and networks.

MorPhiC Phase 1 will include three components:

Data Production Research and Development Centers will develop diverse systems and assays and explore and compare approaches to produce MorPhiC data at scale, and to maximize its informativeness.

Data Analysis and Validation Centers will undertake applicant-proposed analyses of the data in order to characterize its quality and utility for multiple purposes.

There will be a Data Resource and Administrative Coordinating Center.

All components will work together to ensure that the data are informative, of high quality and useful to the community.

Read the MorPhiC Program outline on the NHGRI website →