The Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR) is a centralized facility established to provide genotyping and statistical genetics services for investigators seeking to identify genes that contribute to human disease. CIDR concentrates primarily on multifactorial hereditary disease although linkage analysis of single gene disorders can also be accommodated. CIDR was established in 1996 as a joint effort by eight institutes at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Three additional institutes joined the effort in 1999, and another in 2000. Mouse genotyping services were added in 2000. An application for CIDR Services is welcome from any investigator, world-wide. Access to CIDR is through a peer-review process. The Center currently processes ~24,000 samples per year and generates ~11,000,000 short tandem repeat polymorphism (STRP) genotypes. Over the past year, the Center has acquired the technology and the sample and information management systems to allow high-throughput single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping, both for genome-wide scans and for custom fine-mapping projects. In the immediate future, CIDR will maintain its ability to do genome scanning for ~24,000 samples per year, providing either STRP or SNP genotyping to its investigators. CIDR has also developed the capacity to allow fine mapping with SNPs in an additional ~90,000 samples (projected) as well as, eventually, whole genome association studies.
