John Colombo, professor of psychology and director of the Life Span Institute, explains a Research Rising proposal that would maintain and enhance KU’s international prominence in intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) research by investing in genomics and data science/bioinformatics approaches to IDD — two areas that are a high priority for NIH, critical for advancing understanding of basic mechanisms of IDDs, important for developing more targeted and effective therapeutics, and essential for reaching a larger and more diverse range of affected individuals.