Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN): Biologic-based Drug Discovery and Development for Disorders of the Nervous System (UG3/UH3 Clinical Trial Optional)

The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The overarching goal of this R25 program is to encourage individuals who have not had substantial biomedical research experience, or who have the potential to significantly benefit from additional biomedical research experience to pursue further studies or careers in research. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this NOFO will support educational activities with a primary focus on: (1) Research Experiences, (2) Curriculum or Methods Development and (3) Outreach. The NCI’s mission is to conduct and support research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs concerning cancer. This funding opportunity seeks to facilitate educational activities that encourage students to become knowledgeable about cancer and available to focus on cancer later in their careers. To promote broad interest in pursuing a career in biomedical research via early intervention strategies, the NCI Youth Enjoy Science (YES) Program will support efforts to create and maintain an institutional program to engage grades 6-12 and/or undergraduate students in cutting edge cancer research experiences. The proposed institutional programs may also provide research experiences for the grade 6-12 teachers and undergraduate faculty members. The goals are to inspire interest in biomedical sciences, help envision research as a career path, and strengthen practical research and career skills. In alignment with these goals, institutions may develop unique programs that capitalize on their research strengths and are responsive to their target populations.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) encourages applications for institutional research career development (K12) programs that propose to support intensive supervised research training and career development experiences for clinician scientists (Scholars) leading to research independence in the area of substance use and substance use disorder research.

Through this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) intends to accelerate the adoption and validation of molecular/cellular/imaging markers (referred to as "markers" or "biomarkers") and assays for cancer detection, diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring, and prediction of response or resistance to treatment, as well as markers for cancer prevention and control. This NOFO will also support the validation of pharmacodynamic markers and markers of toxicity. Applicants to this NOFO must have an assay(s) whose performance has been analytically validated in specimens similar to those for the intended clinical use of the marker(s) and assay(s). As chemotherapies and/or radiation therapies are increasingly combined with immunotherapies to enhance the durability of anti-cancer responses, assays for measuring multiple markers, including immune markers, can be developed and validated simultaneously. The UH3 mechanism will support the clinical validation of established assays for up to 3 years using specimens from retrospective or prospective clinical trials or studies. This NOFO may be used to validate existing assays for use in other trials, observational studies, or population studies. Efforts to harmonize clinical laboratory tests, including investigation into the performance and reproducibility of assays across multiple clinical laboratories, are also appropriate for this funding opportunity. Projects proposed for this NOFO will require multi-disciplinary interaction and collaboration among scientific investigators, oncologists, statisticians, and clinical laboratory scientists. This NOFO is not intended to support early-stage development of technology or the conduct of clinical trials but is intended for validation of assays to the point where they could be integrated into clinical trials/studies as investigational assays.

Through this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) along with other participating Institutes encourages submission of applications proposing to conduct secondary data analysis and integration of existing datasets and database resources, with the ultimate aim to elucidate cancer risk and related outcomes (e.g., risk prediction or reduction, survival, or response to treatment, etc.). The goal of this initiative is to address key scientific questions relevant to cancer by supporting the analysis of existing clinical, environmental, surveillance, health services, vital statistics, behavioral, lifestyle, genomic, and molecular profiles data. Applicants are encouraged to leverage and perform innovative analyses of the existing data. Applications may include new research aims that are being addressed with existing data, new or advanced methods of analyses, or novel combinations and integration of datasets that allow the exploration of important scientific questions in cancer research.

Through this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites applications for projects to expand, improve, or transform the utility of mammalian cancer and tumor models for translational research. With this NOFO, the NCI intends to encourage submission of projects devoted to demonstrating that mammalian models or their derivatives used for translational research are robust representations of human biology, are appropriate to test questions of clinical importance, and provide reliable information for patients' benefit. These practical goals contrast with the goals of many mechanistic, NCI-supported R01 projects that employ mammals, or develop and use mammalian cancer models, transplantation tumor models, or models derived from mammalian or human tissues or cells for hypothesis-testing, non-clinical research. Among many other possible endeavors, applicants in response to this FOA could propose demonstrations of how to overcome translational deficiencies of mammalian oncology models, define new uses of mammalian models or their genetics for unexplored translational challenges, advance standard practices for use of translational models, test approaches to validate and credential models, or challenge current practices for how models are used translationally

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL, the Department, or we), Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA or the Agency), is providing notice of the availability of up to $250,000 in grant funds for education and training programs to help the mining community identify, avoid, and prevent unsafe and unhealthy working conditions in and around mines. The program uses grant funds to establish and implement education and training programs, to create training materials and programs, or both. Section 14 of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER Act) requires the Secretary of Labor (Secretary) to give priority to mine safety demonstrations and pilot projects with broad applicability. The MINER Act also mandates that the Secretary emphasize programs and materials that target miners in smaller mines, including training mine operators and miners about new MSHA standards, high-risk activities, and other identified safety hazards. Applicants may be states, territories and tribal governments (including the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Federally recognized tribes) and public or private nonprofit entities. Eligible entities may apply for funding independently or in partnership with other eligible organizations. For partnerships, a lead organization must be identified. Faith-based organizations are encouraged to apply, as are any eligible organizations, subject to any applicable constitutional, statutory, and regulatory protections and requirements. Those that meet the eligibility requirements may receive awards under this funding opportunity. DOL will not, in the selection of recipients and administration of the grant, discriminate on the basis of an organization’s religious character, affiliation, exercise, or lack thereof, or on the basis of conduct that would not be considered grounds to favor or disfavor a similarly situated secular organization. A faith-based organization that participates in this program will retain its independence from the Government and may continue to carry out its mission consistent with religious freedom and conscience protections in Federal law. MSHA may award up to five grants. An applicant may submit multiple applications, and MSHA will select the applications that are most advantageous in meeting the goals of this program. MSHA’s focus for these grants is effective emergency response and recovery training in various types of mine conditions. MSHA is interested in programs that focus on training miners on workplace safety, including training miners and employers about new MSHA standards, high-risk activities, or hazards identified by MSHA. Special attention will be given to programs that target miners at new, newly opened, and smaller mines, or create training and compliance assistance programs to assist new operators.

The overarching goal of this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and its companion opportunities is to establish the Precision Medicine with AI: Integrating Imaging with Multimodal Data (PRIMED-AI) Program to support development of innovative, reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable multimodal AI-based clinical decision support (CDS) tools. PRIMED-AI CDS tools are based on the integration of clinical imaging with other types of multimodal health data to enhance care for patients with a wide range of health conditions. The PRIMED-AI Program seeks to catalyze the adoption of AI-based CDS tools into clinical workflows to enable novel personalized medicine strategies that address significant health challenges. The purpose of this NOFO is to solicit applications for the creation of a Validation Center to serve as a dedicated hub for the comprehensive evaluation and characterization of AI-enabled, image-based, multimodal CDS tools developed by the PRIMED-AI Consortium, to ensure these tools are reliable, reproducible, and generalizable. The Validation Center will focus on verification, validation, interoperability, and uncertainty quantification to comprehensively characterize performance of the CDS tools developed by the program. The core functions of the Validation Center will involve the systematic validation of PRIMED-AI Consortium deliverables, including those emerging from award recipients under the Playbook, Data-to-Model Academic-Industrial Partnerships, and Model-to-Clinic NOFOs.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) invites applications from clinical centers to participate in a consortium to test anti-obesity medication (AOM) treatment strategies for youth with obesity that maximize benefits and minimize risks of AOM use. Such intervention strategies should support the promotion of healthy growth and development; adequate nutritional status/intake, healthy eating and physical activity behaviors; mental health and well-being (e.g., body image, self-esteem, mood, etc.), and quality of life and be feasible to implement in clinical care settings. Priority areas include testing strategies to determine optimal developmental stage for AOM initiation, rate and amount of weight loss, AOM class, dose, frequency, and duration, and content and intensity of adjunct lifestyle therapies that may be imperative to ensure normal psychological and physical development and to potentially avoid lifelong dependence on AOMs. Investigators should also evaluate potential predictors of response/ nonresponse to various treatment strategies under evaluation. The clinical centers may conduct independent or multicenter trials but will collaborate on the development of protocols, use of common measures and data elements, use of a central laboratory and standardized procedures to collect data and biospecimens, and data analyses and manuscripts. This NOFO uses a cooperative agreement mechanism (U01) and runs in parallel with a companion NOFO (RFA-DK-27-136).

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) invites a single cooperative agreement application for the Resource Center for the Cardiovascular Repository for Type 1 Diabetes (CaRe-T1D). The purpose of CaRe-T1D is to support innovative, discovery and mechanistic research through the study of human cardiovascular (CV) tissue. This research seeks to better understand cardiovascular disease (CVD) in type 1 diabetes, highlight differences compared to type 2 diabetes, and ultimately guide the development of therapies to treat this major cause of morbidity and mortality for individuals with type 1 diabetes. To achieve these goals, the Resource Center will expand the CaRe-T1D biorepository of human CV tissue, further develop the data commons for data sharing and for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, coordinate the research activities of the investigative teams in the CaRe-T1D consortium, and make CaRe-T1D resources accessible to the broader research community. This NOFO is associated with the Special Diabetes Program (https://www.niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/research-areas/diabetes/type-1-diabetes-special-statutory-funding-program/about-special-diabetes-program) which funds research on the prevention, treatment, and cure of type 1 diabetes and its complications, including unique, innovative, and collaborative research consortia and clinical trials networks.This is a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for a Single Source that will invite application(s) from eligible organization(s) to apply. Please see Section III. Eligibility for additional information. In accordance with NIH standard peer-review processes, the application(s) will be peer-reviewed, and only meritorious application(s) will be considered for funding.

The purpose of this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to support the next 5-year award period of the Clinician-Scientist Transdisciplinary Aging Research Coordinating Center (Clin-STAR CC), whose mission is to serve as a national resource for clinician-investigators across specialties and disciplines who are focusing their careers on aging research. This NOFO intends to build upon NIA's substantial investments to foster the development of clinician-scientists across specialties and disciplines. The specific goals of this initiative are to convey scientific and research knowledge on aging research; foster networking and collaboration between clinician-scientist leaders in aging research and clinician-investigators across specialties and disciplines who wish to focus on aging research; provide mentoring and career development support for emerging clinician-scientists committed to pursuing aging research in their clinical specialty or discipline; and advance interdisciplinary research projects in aging. Ultimately, the Clin-STAR CC is intended to provide a multi-faceted national research platform leading to improved patient-centered care for older adults across specialties and disciplines.