Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Computational Analysis Research Projects (U01)

Notice Number: NOT-HG-15-036

Key Dates
Release Date: September 11, 2015
Estimated Publication Date of Announcement: November 2015
First Estimated Application Due Date: February 2016
Earliest Estimated Award Date: December 2016
Earliest Estimated Start Date: December 2016

Related Announcements
NOT-HG-15-034
NOT-HG-15-035
NOT-HG-15-037

Issued by
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)

Purpose

The National Human Genome Research Institute intends to publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to maximize the utility of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) resource while simultaneously engaging more of the research community in close collaboration, by inviting additional computational analysis experts to develop and apply computational and statistical methods to ENCODE and related functional genomics data.

This FOA will be one of four FOAs planned in functional genomics to expand the catalog of functional DNA sequence elements, move beyond cataloging towards understanding the functional role of genomic elements in specific biological contexts, develop strategies to apply these studies to disease research, increase the number of scientists from the research community contributing to the creation of the encyclopedia of functional elements, develop analytical tools to enhance the utility of the data and make the data, tools, analyses and assembled encyclopedia freely available to the research community. (See also NOT-HG-15-034; NOT-HG-15-035; NOT-HG-15-037.) For more information, see Concepts approved by National Advisory Committee for Human Genome Research: http://www.genome.gov/Pages/About/NACHGR/May2015AgendaDocuments/Concept_Clearance_Functional_Genomics_Initiatives_5-8-15.pdf.

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

The FOA is expected to be published in the Fall of 2015 with an expected application due date in the Winter of 2016.

This FOA will utilize the U01 (Research Project -- Cooperative Agreement) activity code. Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Research Initiative Details

The goal of the intended FOA is to support investigator-initiated projects to develop and apply analytical and statistical tools to use and improve the ENCODE and related functional genomics resources. These activities can include developing new methods to improve on analysis, visualization and interpretation of ENCODE data, combining ENCODE data with related functional genomic data from other projects to derive new biological insights, or using the ENCODE data to improve on the analysis of disease mapping studies to identify causal variants.

Work supported under this initiative will be primarily computational. Limited data generation for the purposes of testing, validating and refining the methods will be allowed.

APPLICATIONS ARE NOT BEING SOLICITED AT THIS TIME.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Elise A. Feingold, Ph.D
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
Telephone: 301-496-7531
Email: elise_feingold@nih.gov