Key Dates

None

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) intends to publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications to establish the Immune Drivers of Autoimmune Disease (IDAD) cooperative research program, which will focus on defining the immunologic states and dynamics that drive autoimmune disease. The main objective of this program is to improve our understanding of the immunologic processes and events that drive not only the course of autoimmune disease but also the preclinical phase and the transition from subclinical autoimmunity to diagnosed autoimmune disease. A secondary objective is to establish innovative approaches that will facilitate further studies by enhancing feasibility of large-scale studies and reducing both financial costs and the burden to subjects.

This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects.

The objective of the IDAD program is to improve our mechanistic understanding of the immunologic processes underlying the initiation, progression, and clinical course of autoimmune diseases in humans. Research projects proposed in response to this FOA should test hypotheses related to this objective and will be required to adhere to the following parameters:

• All studies must be performed using human subjects and/or materials
• Some portion of the project must involve subjects at elevated risk of developing one or more autoimmune diseases (i.e., at greater risk than healthy subjects from the general population)
• Studies may also involve subjects already diagnosed with autoimmune disease
• Studies may focus on the development of additional autoimmune disease(s) in subjects previously diagnosed with an autoimmune disease

Applicants will also be encouraged to incorporate and test novel approaches or combinations of approaches that hold promise to reduce the cost and clinical burden of longitudinal cohort studies. These approaches include, but are not limited to:

• Determining the relative advantages of using peripheral blood and other biospecimens for obtaining immunologically valuable data;
• Devices, approaches, and techniques for long-term, low-cost, non-invasive or minimally invasive monitoring of subjects for the onset of autoimmune disease;
• Devices, approaches, and techniques for procuring frequent biospecimens from subjects in a manner that minimizes burden to subjects and financial costs (e.g., at-home self-sampling);
• Analytic approaches that will enable extraction from small biospecimens of immunologic data pertinent to understanding the immunologic events that drive clinically relevant changes in autoimmune disease;
• Comparisons of bulk or single-cell RNA sequencing, measurement of soluble mediators, cellular phenotypic analysis, or a combination of approaches as the optimal readout for a prospective observational study of the preclinical phase of human autoimmune disease.

Eligibility

Only one application per institution will be allowed. Foreign (non-US) applications and foreign components will be allowed.

Applications are not being solicited at this time.

Please direct all inquiries to:

Thomas Esch, Ph.D.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

240-627-3565

tesch@niaid.nih.gov