Key Dates

Related Announcements

• September 12, 2023 - Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Parent F31 - Diversity). See NOFO PA-23-271.
• September 07, 2023 - Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellowship for Students at Institutions Without NIH-Funded Institutional Predoctoral Dual-Degree Training Programs (Parent F30). See NOFO PA-23-261.
• September 07, 2023 - Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (Parent F32). See NOFO PA-23-262.
• August 22, 2023 - Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Senior Fellowship (Parent F33). See NOFO PA-23-263.  
• August 17, 2023 - Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (Parent F31). See NOFO PA-23-272. 
• August 16, 2023 - Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellowship for Students at Institutions with NIH-Funded Institutional Predoctoral Dual-Degree Training Programs (Parent F30). See NOFO PA-23-260.
• May 18, 2022 - Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowship Awards to Support Training in Research Related to Down Syndrome as Part of the INCLUDE Project. See Notice NOT-OD-22-126.

Issued by

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)

Purpose

The NIH INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE (INCLUDE) Project seeks to improve health and quality-of-life for individuals with Down syndrome (DS). This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) announces NIH support for the professional development of trainees aiming to establish a career in DS-related research. By providing these scientists with training, resources, and mentorship, the NIH intends to support the career development of junior investigators in DS who will lead future research to improve the understanding of the biology of DS and support development of new treatments for health conditions experienced by those with DS. Investigators early in their careers (e.g., predoctoral candidates) as well as those with advanced degrees (e.g., PhD, MD) may benefit from mentorship from established investigators and professionals in the DS research community in basic science fields as well as clinical and translational arenas.

Background

Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, the most common autosomal trisomy, and one of the most visible and universally recognized genetic syndromes. Each year there are approximately 5700 babies born in the United States with DS. Within the past 25 years, the average lifespan for a person with Down syndrome has doubled, from 30 to 60 years. Despite this increase in lifespan, individuals with Down syndrome and their families face significant and changing health challenges with age, and they have often been excluded from participation in research that could improve their health outcomes and quality of life. While all people with Down syndrome are connected by the common feature of a complete or partial copy of chromosome 21 (trisomy 21), there are significant physical and cognitive differences among them, indicating that inter-individual variability exists.

Down syndrome is associated with an increased prevalence of autism and epilepsy. About 75% of individuals experience cognitive decline in a syndrome that resembles Alzheimer’s disease but has its onset a decade or two earlier than typical Alzheimer’s disease. Individuals with Down syndrome also have high rates of hearing loss, eye abnormalities, congenital heart defects, sleep apnea, pulmonary hypertension, gastrointestinal malformations, thyroid disease, leukemia, and other autoimmune or immune dysregulation disorders including celiac disease. However, people with Down syndrome infrequently develop solid tumors such as breast or prostate cancer, and despite multiple risk factors for coronary artery disease and high rates of obesity, sleep apnea, and type 1 diabetes, they rarely develop atherosclerosis or have myocardial infarctions. Understanding this unique combination of risk and resiliencies will inform medical advances for individuals with Down syndrome, and for individuals who do not have Down syndrome but share these co-occurring conditions.

This NOFO is one of several NIH-wide research initiatives created in response to Fiscal Years 2018-2024 Omnibus Appropriations Reports, which encourage NIH to expand its current efforts on Down syndrome and common co-occurring conditions also seen in the general population, while supporting the career development of Down syndrome investigators. Together, the initiatives are called the INCLUDE Project (INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE). Information about projects that were funded in prior years, as well as the NIH INCLUDE Down Syndrome Research Plan, are available on the INCLUDE Project website at https://www.nih.gov/include-project/.

Research Objectives

The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to support Fellowship Award applications that are focused on Down syndrome and that meet programmatic objectives for the INCLUDE Project.

The NIH is issuing this NOSI to expand the community of investigators conducting research related to DS by encouraging scientists and physicians early in their research careers to develop research projects related to co-occurring conditions associated with DS. Sharing of resources and effective communication of outputs to the broader communities are a high priority of the INCLUDE Project. Applicants responding to this NOSI are strongly encouraged to describe plans for rapid sharing of data and results as well as innovative data analytics approaches (see Goal 3, NIH Strategic Plan For Data Science).

A list of Funding Priorities by Institute and Center for the project is available on the INCLUDE website. Applications in response to this NOSI should be aligned with the overall NIH INCLUDE Project Research Plan, which consists of three components:

• Component 1: Targeted, high risk-high reward, basic science studies in areas highly relevant to Down syndrome
• Component 2: Assembly of a large cohort of individuals with Down syndrome across the lifespan to perform deep phenotyping and study co-existing conditions
• Component 3: Inclusive clinical trials of existing and future treatments and interventions for co-occurring conditions in individuals with Down syndrome

Program Directors/Principal Investigators (PD/PIs) planning to submit applications in response to this NOSI are strongly encouraged to contact the scientific contacts of this NOSI prior to submission to be advised on appropriateness of the intended resource and research plans for this program, competitiveness of a potential application, and alignment with program priorities of the INCLUDE initiative. The Frequently Asked Questions page of the INCLUDE website has a list of contacts for each participating NIH Institute and Center under "General".

Projects that propose to recruit subjects with DS are encouraged to promote enrollment of research subjects in the DS patient registry supported by NIH, DS-Connect. For other data and biospecimens collected from human genetic or non-genetic studies, awardees are encouraged to use biorepositories designated by INCLUDE staff that meet requirements for broad sharing. An NIH resource describing Common Data Elements may be helpful during the planning phases of a project when considering ways to optimize data collection in order to facilitate broad data sharing. For those applications that generate clinical data, it is expected that the data sharing plan will include the INCLUDE Data Coordinating Center (DCC). The INCLUDE DCC will also accommodate experimental models data in the near future and may be a resource for future data sharing for basic research.

Application and Submission Information

Applicants must select the IC and associated NOFO to use for submission of an application in response to the NOSI. The selection must align with the IC requirements listed in order to be considered responsive to that NOFO. Non-responsive applications will be withdrawn from consideration for this initiative.  In addition, applicants using NIH Parent Announcements (listed below) will be assigned to those ICs on this NOSI that have indicated those NOFOs are acceptable and based on usual application-IC assignment practices.

This notice applies to due dates on or after December 8, 2024 and subsequent receipt dates through September 8, 2027. 

Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following notices of funding opportunity (NOFO) or any reissues of these announcements through the expiration date of this notice. 

All instructions in the How to Apply - Application Guide and the notice of funding opportunity used for submission must be followed, with the following additions:

• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-OD-24-143” (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.

Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will not be considered for the NOSI initiative.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to the Scientific/Research, Peer Review, and Financial/Grants Management contacts in Section VII of the listed notice of funding opportunity.

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Charlene Schramm, PhD
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Telephone: 301-402-3793
Email: [email protected]

Peer Review Contact(s)

Examine your eRA Commons account for review assignment and contact information (information appears two weeks after the submission due date).

Financial/Grants Management Contact(s)

Kelly Fritz
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
Telephone:301-827-5429
Email: [email protected]