The NIH Common Fund has generated several valuable and widely available data sets by multiple programs. The purpose of this Notice is to announce the availability of administrative supplements to demonstrate use of selected Common Fund data sets, including generating hypotheses and catalyzing discoveries. Supplement recipients are also asked to provide feedback on utility of the Common Fund data resources.

Background

Since its initial inception as the NIH Roadmap for Biomedical Research, the NIH Common Fund has supported dozens of transformative research programs that generated new technologies, methods, and data. Many of these programs generated rich public data sets containing a variety of multi-dimensional molecular and phenotypic data from several organisms including mouse and human. As various Common Fund data resources have become available, investigators frequently state that they are unaware of the data and/or of the relevance that the data may have for their research interests. In addition, some report difficulty using or exploring the data because the data portals are non-intuitive to use and/or the data are otherwise difficult to navigate. To maximize the impact of these data and engage a broader community of end-users for wider adoption of these data sets and to obtain feedback from supplement recipients to enhance the data portals, the Common Fund plans to support administrative supplements encouraging the use of Common Fund data sets. Supplements are intended to enable novel and compelling biological questions to be formulated and addressed, and/or to generate cross-cutting hypotheses for future research.

Research Objectives

The Common Fund seeks to fund analyses and enhance utility of existing Common Fund data sets to uncover potential molecular mechanisms driving various diseases and to generate novel hypotheses for further testing. Investigators are encouraged to utilize various approaches including but not limited to systems approaches incorporating computational modeling to bring together high throughput genotype and phenotype data sets. Because information regarding the user experience could help NIH improve its data resources, it is expected that NIH will receive feedback from awardees on usability and utility of data sets and public data portals, which the awardees can provide in their progress reports.

The established Common Fund data sets listed below are well-poised for increased community use. Applicants must propose to use at least one data set from the following list, although they can propose to use other data sets as well. While integration across multiple data sets is encouraged, it is not required.

• 4DNucleome: The 4D Nucleome Data Portal hosts data (e.g., HiC, and DNA-FISH data sets) generated by the 4DN Network and other reference nucleomics data sets, and an expanding tool set for open data processing and visualization
• Genotype-Tissue Expression: whole genome sequence and RNA sequence data from multiple human tissues to study tissue-specific gene expression and regulation
• Illuminating the Druggable Genome (PHAROS): integrated source containing data on understudied druggable proteins, including mRNA and protein expression data, phenotype associations, bioactivity data, drug target interactions, disease links, and functional information
• Knockout Mouse Phenotyping Program (KOMP2): data on broad, standardized phenotyping of a genome-wide collection of mouse knockouts
• Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS): library of molecular signatures that describes how different types of cells respond to a variety of agents that disrupt normal cellular function
• Metabolomics Workbench: repository for metabolomics data and metadata from studies on cells, tissues, and organisms
• Integrated Human Microbiome Project microbiome, epigenomic, metabolomic, and phenotypic data for 3 cohorts

Examples of potential research topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Investigation of gene expression, genome topology, protein expression, and/or epigenetic patterns across several disease conditions
• Identification of biomarkers (metabolites, genetic variants, DNA methylation and/or histone marks) associated with various diseases and risk factors
• Machine learning and computational approaches to identify likely areas of the genome and genetic variations/mutations related to human diseases
• Network analysis across genetic variation, expression profiling, and/or GWAS data to reveal pathways associated with various diseases.

Budget

To be eligible, the parent award must be able to receive funds in FY19 (Oct. 1, 2018-Sept. 30, 2019) and not be in a no-cost extension period at the time of the award.

Supplement budget requests cannot exceed $200,000/year direct costs exclusive of Facilities and Administrative costs on sub-awards. Budgets may not exceed the total direct costs of the current parent award. Requests must reflect the actual needs of the proposed project. Requests may be only for one year of support. Modular and categorical budgets are permitted. It is anticipated that 10-15 awards will be made, subject to availability of funds.

Eligible Individuals (Program Director/Principal Investigator)

Individual(s) must hold an active grant or cooperative agreement. For supplements to parent awards that include multiple PDs/PIs, the supplement may be requested by any or all of the PDs/PIs (in accordance with the existing leadership plan) and submitted by the awardee institution of the parent award. All instructions for the Parent Announcement must be followed.

Submitting Applications:

Supplements to Grants/Cooperative Agreements:

For administrative supplement to grants and cooperative agreements, supplement requests must be submitted in accordance with the parent program announcement: Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional) PA-18-591.

Applicants should begin the supplement application abstract by stating “This application is being submitted in response to NOT-RM-19-009”

Scientific Review Process

The Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) will conduct administrative reviews of submitted applications and will support the most meritorious applications submitted for consideration, pending availability of funds.

Criteria:

1. Is the work proposed within the scope of the parent award?

2. Will the work proposed demonstrate or enhance utility of Common Fund data sets?

3. Does the work proposed have high scientific merit?

4. Is the work likely to generate hypotheses which could lead to additional studies in the future?

5. Does the proposed work broaden the end-user community and/or encourage new users?

Application and Submission Information:

• Applicants should include “Common Fund Data Supplement” in the title of their application.
• Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity: PA-18-591 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional).
• All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-18-591 must be followed, with the following additions:

• Application Due Date July 29, 2019, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
• Requests may be for one year of support only.
• The Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 6 pages.
• The process for Streamlined Submissions using the eRA Commons cannot be used for this initiative.
• For funding consideration, applicants must include "NOT-RM-19-009" (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (Box 4.b) of the SF 424 (R&R) Form. Applications without this information in Box 4.b will not be considered for this initiative.

It is strongly recommended that the applicants contact their respective program officers at the Institute supporting the parent award to:

• confirm ahead of time that the supplement falls within scope of the parent award;
• request the requirements of the IC for submitting applications for administrative supplements

Investigators planning to submit an application in response to this NOSI are strongly encouraged to contact and discuss their proposed research/aims with the OSC contact listed on this NOSI well in advance of the grant receipt date.

Following submission, applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the program contact at the IC supporting the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this FOA in order to facilitate efficient processing of the request.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Ananda L. Roy, Ph.D.
Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC)
Office of the Director (OD)
Telephone: 301-435-8056
Email: ananda.roy@nih.gov