The effort, led by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), aims to integrate anatomical, functional and clinical data into a single knowledge network capable of mapping how systems interact across the body.
“Biomedical research is largely organized around the study of specific organs and diseases,” said Helene M. Langevin, MD, director of NCCIH, in NIH’s press announcement. “In contrast, we do much less research on health itself, which is an integrated process involving the whole person.”
Shift toward systems biology
Commenting independently, Dr. Nathan Price, chief science officer at health technology company Thorne, told NutraIngredients that the NIH initiative reflects a move toward the systems-biology framework that has shaped personalized health science and many supplement strategies. Most research and policy frameworks have treated organs and diseases in isolation, he noted, which can fall short as “the human body operates as a complex, interconnected system.”
He said the NIH effort instead “validates the idea that health interventions need to target networks of function, not just single endpoints.”
Implications for clinical study design
A core component of the NIH project is the development of a whole-body knowledge network that links established datasets such as The Human BioMolecular Atlas Program (HuBMAP) and the Human Reference Atlas. According to the agency, later stages will connect clinical measures like blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol with major physiological functions.
Dr. Price said this structure could change how the industry approaches clinical research, particularly for multi-ingredient or systems-based formulations.
“Access to network-level data will allow us to quantify those relationships in much richer ways,” he said, adding that integrated models support studies that assess not only whether an intervention works but “how and why it works across interconnected biological pathways.”
Momentum for personalized and multi-component strategies
The NIH framework also emphasizes the combined influence of diet, activity and stress management on health outcomes. Dr. Price said this approach could boost the development of both multi-component formulations and personalized nutrition tools.
“By recognizing that health is influenced by the interplay of diet, activity and emotional well-being, the NIH is helping build the scientific foundation for integrative and personalized approaches.”
Dr. Nathan Price, CSO at Thorne
He added that “the future of health isn’t a single solution acting in isolation; it’s integrated, personalized protocols guided by data and systems understanding.”
Linking consumer measures with validated models
A longer-term goal of the initiative is to tie everyday measures used in self-monitoring to validated physiological models. Dr. Price said this connection could help align consumer wearables and at-home tests with evidence-backed guidance.
“We’re entering an era where consumers are empowered to continuously monitor their own health and wellness,” he said. “By linking data from wearables or at-home tests with clinically grounded insights, we can begin to close the feedback loop between self-monitoring and intervention.”
Such systems, he noted, could be used to detect subtle shifts in physiological function and translate those signals into tailored supplement or nutrition protocols.
Pathways for public–private collaboration
NIH officials clarified that the project will draw on existing scientific resources and datasets, and according to Dr. Price, this creates room for coordinated work between supplement companies and public research institutions.
“There’s a tremendous opportunity for collaboration between the public and private sectors,” he said. “The private sector can play a pivotal role by contributing high-quality, ethically collected and well-annotated data that complements the NIH’s foundational work.”
Shared data standards and validation frameworks would support transparency and interoperability, he added.
Potential impact on regulatory science
Moving forward, systems-level evidence could play a role in shaping future regulatory thinking on efficacy and safety.
“My view is that we need updated regulatory frameworks that are well-tailored to more personalized and systems-oriented health interventions,” Dr. Price said. He noted that regulators may eventually assess composite measures of functional improvement rather than single biomarkers.
While “it won’t happen overnight,” he conceded, initiatives like the NIH project help establish the scientific foundation for any future evolution.
According to NIH, the Whole Person Reference Physiome will provide researchers with a platform to explore how physiological systems work together to maintain health and how these systems decline over time.
“With our ability to acquire new scientific data at an increasingly dizzying speed, the importance of integrating and connecting new data to what we already know is greater than ever,” Dr. Langevin said.
