Department of Health and Human Services

Part 1. Overview Information

Participating Organization(s)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Components of Participating Organizations

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Funding Opportunity Title
Building in vivo Preclinical Assays of Circuit Engagement for Application in Therapeutic Development (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
Activity Code
R01 Research Project Grant
Announcement Type

Reissue of RFA-MH-19-235

Related Notices
  • NOT-OD-22-190 - Adjustments to NIH and AHRQ Grant Application Due Dates Between September 22 and September 30, 2022
  • July 7, 2022 - This PAR has been reissued as PAR-22-170
  • April 7, 2022 - Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Building in vivo Preclinical Assays of Circuit Engagement for Application in Therapeutic Development (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See Notice NOT-MH-22-211
  • October 28, 2021 - Reminder: FORMS-G Grant Application Forms & Instructions Must be Used for Due Dates On or After January 25, 2022 - New Grant Application Instructions Now Available. See Notice NOT-OD-22-018.
  • September 13, 2021 - Updates to the Non-Discrimination Legal Requirements for NIH Recipients. See Notice NOT-OD-21-181.
  • August 5, 2021 - New NIH "FORMS-G" Grant Application Forms and Instructions Coming for Due Dates on or after January 25, 2022. See Notice NOT-OD-21-169
  • August 5, 2021 - Update: Notification of Upcoming Change in Federal-wide Unique Entity Identifier Requirements. See Notice NOT-OD-21-170
  • April 20, 2021 - Expanding Requirement for eRA Commons IDs to All Senior/Key Personnel. See Notice NOT-OD-21-109
  • March 10, 2020 - Reminder: FORMS-F Grant Application Forms & Instructions Must be Used for Due Dates On or After May 25, 2020- New Grant Application Instructions Now Available. See Notice NOT-OD-20-077.
  • August 23, 2019 - Clarifying Competing Application Instructions and Notice of Publication of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Regarding Proposed Human Fetal Tissue Research. See Notice NOT-OD-19-137.
  • July 26, 2019 - Changes to NIH Requirements Regarding Proposed Human Fetal Tissue Research. See Notice NOT-OD-19-128.
Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) Number
PAR-19-289
Companion Funding Opportunity

None

Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s)

93.242

Funding Opportunity Purpose

The overall goal of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to identify, in animals, in vivo neurophysiological and behavioral measures for use as assays in the early screening phase of treatment development. The FOA will support efforts to optimize and evaluate measures of neurophysiological and behavioral processes that may serve as surrogate markers of neural processes of clinical interest based on available knowledge of the neurobiology of mental illnesses. The screening assays thus developed from this FOA are expected to build upon systems neurobiology and clinical neuroscience to enhance the scientific value of preclinical animal data contributing to a therapeutic development pipeline by assessing the impact of therapeutic targets and treatment candidates on neurobiological mechanisms of clinical relevance to mental illnesses.

The objectives of the FOA will be accomplished by supporting basic and translational neuroscientists who are committed to improving the efficiency and scientific value of the therapeutic development pipeline by advancing the discovery of in vivo physiological and behavioral measures reflecting circuit engagement as tools for early phase target validation and therapeutic screening for mental illness treatment development. The efforts supported by this initiative focus on measures in animals as a first step in generating translational assay measures that are adaptable across early therapeutic screens in animals to evaluation in humans. As such, this FOA may be considered a prequel to build a suite of assays that are evaluated in future projects for coherence of assay performance between the preclinical species and healthy humans. In summary, this FOA will support efforts to improve the tool kit of assays available for early phase testing of novel therapeutic agents by incorporating measures proximal to neural systems that impact mental health.

Key Dates

Posted Date

May 29, 2019

Open Date (Earliest Submission Date)
September 05, 2019
Letter of Intent Due Date(s)

Not Applicable

Application Due Date(s)

Standard dates apply, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization. All types of non-AIDS applications allowed for this funding opportunity announcement are due on these dates.

The first standard application due date for this FOA is October 5, 2019.

Applicants are encouraged to apply early to allow adequate time to make any corrections to errors found in the application during the submission process by the due date.

AIDS Application Due Date(s)

Not Applicable

Scientific Merit Review
Advisory Council Review
Earliest Start Date
Expiration Date
September 08, 2022
Due Dates for E.O. 12372
Not Applicable
Required Application Instructions

It is critical that applicants follow the instructions in the Research (R) Instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide,except where instructed to do otherwise (in this FOA or in a Notice from NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts ).

Conformance to all requirements (both in the Application Guide and the FOA) is required and strictly enforced. Applicants must read and follow all application instructions in the Application Guide as well as any program-specific instructions noted in Section IV. When the program-specific instructions deviate from those in the Application Guide, follow the program-specific instructions.

Applications that do not comply with these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review.

Table of Contents

Part 2. Full Text of Announcement

Section I. Funding Opportunity Description

Background and Research Objectives

Despite large investments by pharmaceutical and biotech industries, the last 20 years have yielded few novel treatments to address unmet needs for individuals suffering with mental illnesses. Multiple factors have contributed to the low success rate, including insufficient understanding of disease pathophysiology and the basis for heterogeneity in presentation and treatment response of patients within categorical diagnoses. The NIMH supports efforts such as the Research Domains Criteria (RDoC) project to transform diagnostics (NIMH Strategic Plan for Research) by promoting research that extends beyond the current symptom-based diagnostic categories (i.e., Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, DSM) to identify functional domains whose disruption contributes significantly to disability across diagnoses. However, RDoC was designed to provide a context to examine functional domains and relevant neurobiology in humans, not in animals. While clinical neuroscience advances our understanding of circuit disruptions driving behavioral deficits in humans, the need for comparable efforts in basic neuroscience has become evident, particularly across the therapeutic development pipeline where behavioral screens in animals often contribute to the selection of lead candidates for the development of novel treatments for mental illnesses. The goal of this FOA is to address this gap by supporting the initial development and testing of innovative neurophysiological and behavioral measures that have potential to serve as translational screening assays in preclinical species.

The poor predictive value of current preclinical screening model systems in therapeutic development for neurological and mental disorders is well recognized by the pharmaceutical industry and was recently the topic of a high profile workshop (see National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report, Therapeutic Development in the Absence of Predictive Animal Models of Nervous System Disorders: Proceedings of a Workshop). Commonly used batteries of behavioral assays in rodents such as the forced swim test, tail suspension test, elevated plus maze, novelty induced suppression, novelty induced feeding suppression, sucrose preference, open field activity test, and reversal of drug induced hyperlocomotion or grooming are useful in some contexts, such as addressing effects of novel ligands on brain and pharmacodynamic responses. However, these measures do not reflect specific neural processes or predict efficacy and relationships between these measures in animals and behavioral deficits or neural activity irregularities in patients is unknown.

Technical advances in neuroscience, including those generated through the BRAIN initiative, now provide tremendous opportunities to understand the functional impact of cell and circuit diversity and identify novel therapeutic targets. Still, while the neurobiology underlying target identification has advanced, neuroscience-based approaches to screen potential targets and treatment candidates in the therapeutic development pipeline have not kept pace. The current FOA is built on the premise that it is possible to develop neurophysiological and behavioral measures in animals that mirror a subset of brain activities and functional domains suggested by clinical neuroscience to impact mental health and disability, here defined as potentially clinically relevant . To advance such measures as assays for treatment development, this FOA encourages applications aimed at addressing three specific goals; 1) identification and optimization of measures that reflect clinically relevant brain processes that are potentially conserved between preclinical species and humans, 2) evaluation of the sensitivity and selectivity of the potential measures as screening assays by examining their performance in response to perturbations such as drugs, and 3) testing the role of the brain pathways hypothesized to underlie the physiological and/or behavioral assay measure. Completion of these goals is expected to unveil novel, research-based physiological and/or behavioral assays that are poised for cross validation against results of similar measures in humans and then potential use as preclinical assay measures in a treatment development pipeline for mental illnesses. Thus, while human testing is not a component of this FOA, the measures to be developed in animals through this FOA should be designed so the coherence, or lack of concurrence, of the assay performance across species to humans can be assessed in future projects. In this way, assays developed here may be considered the preclinical prequel to subsequent projects aimed at evaluating the assays for coherence of performance between the preclinical species and healthy humans.

Research Scope

The FOA supports the initial stages in the development, optimization, and evaluation of novel in vivo measures as potential assays in early (pre-first in human) screening of therapeutic candidates. Assays may include neurophysiological and/or behavioral measures. Key considerations are listed below but at a minimum, measures should be amenable to study in live animals and in future studies in humans, and they must be innovative.

Priority will be given to applications that include all three of the following phases:

  1. Optimization, in animals, of novel, predominantly non-invasive neurophysiological or behavioral measures reflecting activity of clinically relevant brain processes or functional domains that are disrupted within or across mental illnesses. Optimization should focus on mirroring testing parameters or measures used in human experiments where human assays exist or developing tests that have potential value for future translation to humans.
  2. Evaluation of the performance of the physiological or behavioral measures as potential assays in a therapeutic pipeline across a range of perturbations (e.g., drugs, transcranial magnetic stimulation, etc.).
  3. Mechanistic testing of brain processes and/or circuits proposed as key drivers of the neurophysiological or behavioral assay measures. For example, a study might include optogenetic or chemogenetic approaches to manipulate specific circuits in combination with in vivo electrophysiological measures to verify circuits contributing to specific EEG power spectral changes elicited by a cognitive challenge. Studies are expected to include a subset of studies that address the relationship between brain activity measures and changes in the physiological or behavioral assay measures in response to the same drugs or perturbations evaluated in the assay optimization stage.

Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to read the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for this FOA and to contact NIMH Scientific/Research Contacts(s) prior to preparing an application.

This FOA aims to stimulate the development of in vivo assays to address translational gaps in treatment development for mental illnesses. Support will be provided for assay development efforts in animals that propose quantitative measures of neurophysiological and/or behavioral processes where there is reasonable evidence to suggest that measure is a potential contributor to functional deficits of individuals with mental illnesses (e.g., cognitive function, impulsivity, and motivation, etc.).

Examples of relevant neurophysiological and/or behavioral measures for development and evaluation as assays include, but are not limited to:

  • Spectral EEG or MEG to assess brain rhythms with different frequencies.
  • Measures that tap into fundamental processes that are disrupted within or across mental illnesses such as aspects of vigilance, neurophysiological measures of neural plasticity, or attentional mechanisms contributing to cognition and/or affect regulation.
  • Measures relevant to anhedonia that can be assessed in animals and humans such as reward learning, cognitive effort during learning, measures of wanting versus liking, etc.
  • Measures relevant to impulsivity such as delay discounting, behavioral inhibition.
  • Measures that tap into neural circuit activity linked to specific cognitive domains. For example, the CNTRICS program identified constructs across six cognitive systems relevant to schizophrenia and selected tasks from cognitive neuroscience that measure the constructs and the CNTRACS initiative extended those measures (goal maintenance, relational encoding, gain control, visual integration).
  • Prefrontal cortical top-down inhibitory control over subcortical and brainstem systems that regulate autonomic function (brain noradrenergic hyperfunction, electrodermal response, pupillometry).
  • Measures of sleep physiology (sleep spindle characteristics, sleep microstructure) relevant to mood and cognitive function. Note that studies of circadian rhythmicity mechanisms per se are not appropriate for this FOA.
  • Measures in awake behaving animals relevant to human functional or molecular imaging (fMRI or MRS).
  • Additional innovative measures are encouraged including the use of novel tools or methods arising from the BRAIN initiative.
  • Computational approaches connecting behaviors with circuit functions are encouraged. NIMH is particularly interested in new computational theories of complex behaviors able to link multiple behavioral (and circuit) parameters, tracked over time to make predictions on potentially back-translatable (animal-to-humans) behavioral outcomes.

Mechanistic testing of underlying brain pathways will be tailored to the proposed assay measure. For example, studies might examine if specific changes in dopamine signaling to striatum or prefrontal cortex reliably predict speed or accuracy of reward contingency learning. These studies are critical for advancing a new generation of in vivo assays for therapeutic development that are be grounded in a clinically-meaningful neurobiological context.

The main emphasis must be on developing novel, clinically relevant measures as assays. While the neurophysiological or behavioral measures may not be innovative by themselves, their inclusion in a therapeutic development pipeline must be novel.

Since this work is expected to identify and optimize novel assay measures that can subsequently be compared with measures in healthy humans, it is imperative that proposed neurophysiological and behavioral assay measures be feasible to perform in healthy humans.

Projects Not Supported by this Announcement Include:

  • Development or inclusion of animal models "of" mental disorders. Only wild-type healthy animals should be included in all phases except for genetic tools needed to measure and evaluate brain pathways relevant to the physiological or behavioral measures in the mechanistic testing phase 3.
  • Broad batteries of behavioral tests to address emotional constructs such as depression or anxiety .
  • Studies aimed solely at developing measures of circadian rhythmicity or clock regulatory mechanisms as assays.
  • Cell culture or in vitro assay measures.
  • Hypothesis testing beyond evaluation of the relationship of the neurophysiological or behavioral measures to specific circuits. For example, studies focused primarily on testing brain systems underlying functional domains, pathophysiology of disease, or treatment response are not appropriate.
  • Studies aimed primarily at evaluating novel therapeutic targets or treatment candidates.
  • Studies in humans.
  • While neurophysiological measures such as event-related potential (ERP) may be useful for refining critical temporal parameters of an assay, they have insufficient specificity to assess effects across trials. Studies proposing EEG measures as assays should focus on frequency band measures for this FOA.
  • Measures should be innovative in relation to published relevant literature. For example, assays of plasticity mechanisms could focus on novel neurophysiological measures. Many behavioral readouts of learning and memory are well established and already sufficiently represented in the NIMH portfolio, particularly for contextual versus cued fear learning.

Milestones

All projects must propose a timeline for completion of the required components of assay development, including assay measure optimization (1), evaluation of assay performance (2), and mechanistic testing (3). If more than one measure is proposed for optimization, the timeline must include plans for optimization of each measure. An additional milestone should outline plans and a timeline for dissemination of results, regardless of outcome.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to refer to the FAQs for this PAR-19-289 .

See Section VIII. Other Information for award authorities and regulations.

Section II. Award Information

Funding Instrument

Grant: A support mechanism providing money, property, or both to an eligible entity to carry out an approved project or activity.

Application Types Allowed
New
Renewal
Resubmission
Revision

The OER Glossary and the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide provide details on these application types.

Clinical Trial?
Not Allowed: Only accepting applications that do not propose clinical trials

Need help determining whether you are doing a clinical trial?

Funds Available and Anticipated Number of Awards

The number of awards is contingent upon NIH appropriations and the submission of a sufficient number of meritorious applications.

Award Budget

Application budgets are not limited but need to reflect the actual needs of the proposed project. It is expected that budgets of $250,000 direct costs per year or less will be adequate for most projects proposing to optimize just one measure.

Award Project Period

The scope of the proposed project should determine the project period. The maximum period is 5 years.

NIH grants policies as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement will apply to the applications submitted and awards made from this FOA.

Section III. Eligibility Information

1. Eligible Applicants

Eligible Organizations

Higher Education Institutions

  • Public/State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education
  • Private Institutions of Higher Education

The following types of Higher Education Institutions are always encouraged to apply for NIH support as Public or Private Institutions of Higher Education:

  • Hispanic-serving Institutions
  • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
  • Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs)
  • Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions
  • Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)

Nonprofits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education

  • Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
  • Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)

For-Profit Organizations

  • Small Businesses
  • For-Profit Organizations (Other than Small Businesses)

Governments

  • State Governments
  • County Governments
  • City or Township Governments
  • Special District Governments
  • Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Federally Recognized)
  • Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Other than Federally Recognized)
  • Eligible Agencies of the Federal Government
  • U.S. Territory or Possession
Other
  • Independent School Districts
  • Public Housing Authorities/Indian Housing Authorities
  • Native American Tribal Organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
  • Faith-based or Community-based Organizations
  • Regional Organizations
  • Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions)
Foreign Institutions

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are eligible to apply

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are eligible to apply.

Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed.
Required Registrations

Applicant organizations

Applicant organizations must complete and maintain the following registrations as described in the SF 424 (R&R) Application Guide to be eligible to apply for or receive an award. All registrations must be completed prior to the application being submitted. Registration can take 6 weeks or more, so applicants should begin the registration process as soon as possible. The NIH Policy on Late Submission of Grant Applications states that failure to complete registrations in advance of a due date is not a valid reason for a late submission.

  • Dun and Bradstreet Universal Numbering System (DUNS) - All registrations require that applicants be issued a DUNS number. After obtaining a DUNS number, applicants can begin both SAM and eRA Commons registrations. The same DUNS number must be used for all registrations, as well as on the grant application.
  • System for Award Management (SAM) Applicants must complete and maintain an active registration, which requires renewal at least annually. The renewal process may require as much time as the initial registration. SAM registration includes the assignment of a Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code for domestic organizations which have not already been assigned a CAGE Code.
  • eRA Commons - Applicants must have an active DUNS number to register in eRA Commons. Organizations can register with the eRA Commons as they are working through their SAM or Grants.gov registration , but all registrations must be in place by time of submission. eRA Commons requires organizations to identify at least one Signing Official (SO) and at least one Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) account in order to submit an application.
  • Grants.gov Applicants must have an active DUNS number and SAM registration in order to complete the Grants.gov registration.

Program Directors/Principal Investigators (PD(s)/PI(s))

All PD(s)/PI(s) must have an eRA Commons account. PD(s)/PI(s) should work with their organizational officials to either create a new account or to affiliate their existing account with the applicant organization in eRA Commons. If the PD/PI is also the organizational Signing Official, they must have two distinct eRA Commons accounts, one for each role. Obtaining an eRA Commons account can take up to 2 weeks.

Eligible Individuals (Program Director/Principal Investigator)

Any individual(s) with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research as the Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) (PD(s)/PI(s)) is invited to work with his/her organization to develop an application for support. Individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as well as individuals with disabilities are always encouraged to apply for NIH support.

For institutions/organizations proposing multiple PDs/PIs, visit the Multiple Program Director/Principal Investigator Policy and submission details in the Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) Component of the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

2. Cost Sharing

This FOA does not require cost sharing as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

3. Additional Information on Eligibility

Applicant organizations may submit more than one application, provided that each application is scientifically distinct.

The NIH will not accept duplicate or highly overlapping applications under review at the same time. This means that the NIH will not accept:

  • A new (A0) application that is submitted before issuance of the summary statement from the review of an overlapping new (A0) or resubmission (A1) application.
  • A resubmission (A1) application that is submitted before issuance of the summary statement from the review of the previous new (A0) application.
  • An application that has substantial overlap with another application pending appeal of initial peer review (see NOT-OD-11-101)

Section IV. Application and Submission Information

1. Requesting an Application Package

The application forms package specific to this opportunity must be accessed through ASSIST, Grants.gov Workspace or an institutional system-to-system solution. Links to apply using ASSIST or Grants.gov Workspace are available in Part 1 of this FOA. See your administrative office for instructions if you plan to use an institutional system-to-system solution.

2. Content and Form of Application Submission

It is critical that applicants follow the instructions in the Research (R) Instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide except where instructed in this funding opportunity announcement to do otherwise. Conformance to the requirements in the Application Guide is required and strictly enforced. Applications that are out of compliance with these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review.
Page Limitations
All page limitations described in the SF424 Application Guide and the Table of Page Limits must be followed
Instructions for Application Submission
The following section supplements the instructions found in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and should be used for preparing an application to this FOA.
SF424(R&R) Cover
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.
SF424(R&R) Project/Performance Site Locations
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.
SF424(R&R) Other Project Information
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.
SF424(R&R) Senior/Key Person Profile
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

R&R Subaward Budget
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.
PHS 398 Cover Page Supplement
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.
PHS 398 Research Plan
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed, with the following additional instructions:

Specific Aims: Provide the overall goals for the entire application. The Specific Aims section should include distinct Aims for each of the three phases (assay optimization, performance evaluation, and mechanistic testing).

Research Strategy: Organize the Research Strategy in the subsections identified below.

Applicants should describe the three phases within these subsections as described, including milestones for each phase.

Significance:

  • Discuss how the proposed measure(s) of neurophysiological or behavioral processes address a translational gap including how they relate to brain activities and functional domains suggested by clinical neuroscience to impact mental health and disability.
  • Detail how do the proposed measures relate to currently available measures used to assess functional domains in humans
  • Describe how the results will add value to a therapeutic development pipeline regardless of outcome.

Innovation:

  • Explain how the project offers a novel approach to evaluating potential new treatments for mental illnesses.
  • If similar types of measures are already in common practice in a preclinical treatment development pathway, explain why the proposed approach would be expected to provide important new information or a benefit over existing measures.
  • Comment on the novelty of proposed assays.

Approach: This section should cover the application as a whole as well as the three phases with the appropriate headers within the text.

Overall Approach:

  • Justify the choice of measure(s), including a brief description of evidence that the measures have potential to either directly or indirectly assess activity or function within the same targeted circuits or physiological processes in both the preclinical species and humans.
  • Provide evidence of feasibility to perform the measurements and manipulations in both preclinical species and humans (the latter in future studies).
  • Include discussion of evidence indicating how the planned measures/manipulations are relevant to key neural circuits/processes that are disrupted in mental disorders and with potential clinical benefit if corrected.
  • Describe the research team's approach toward selecting, optimizing and evaluating the assays.
  • Explain the rationale behind the choice of preclinical species, assays, and endpoints for all studies.
  • Describe goals for each of the three phases:
    • For step 1, optimization; clearly describe studies aimed at measure optimization to approximate measures that are, or could be, performed in humans. Include strategies for addressing barriers that may arise in the course of optimization to facilitate future head to head comparisons with comparable measures in humans. Fr example, if the goal is to advance task driven EEG measures in rodents, describe studies aimed at improving signal to noise or determining optimum electrode placement.
    • For step 2, performance evaluation; detail how performance of the physiological or behavioral measure(s) will be evaluated as potential assay(s) across a range of levels (i.e., doses) of a perturbation (e.g., drugs, transcranial magnetic stimulation, etc.). Describe the rationale for the perturbation selected for evaluation of the measure including dose, route, and timing of intervention in relation to testing. For example, if the perturbation is a drug, detail if dose selection is based on brain target occupancy.
    • For step 3, mechanistic testing; detail methods to be used to test the involvement of hypothesized circuits, including procedures for both directly modifying the circuits and recording effects on circuit activity during simultaneous measurement of the physiological or behavioral measure. For example, a study might include optogenetic or chemogenetic approaches to manipulate specific circuits in combination with in vivo electrophysiological measures to verify circuits contributing to specific EEG power spectral changes elicited by a cognitive challenge.
  • Applications must also include a subset of experiments evaluating the relationship between brain activity changes and physiological/behavioral assay measures in response to the same perturbations evaluated in the performance evaluation stage.
  • Applications are strongly advised to provide alternate strategies should results suggest the tested circuit is not critical for the measure.
  • Include enough details to allow reviewers to evaluate the rigor of the experimental design. Describe the study design in detail, including the strain, age, and sex of animals, power analyses and associated assumptions for the determination of sample size, statistical handling of the data, procedures used for addressing sex as a biological variable, blinding and randomization.
  • Describe plans for data analysis and interpretation including what would constitute a go/no go decision for further measure development, including later tests for cross-species conservation of the measure, and implementation in a therapeutic discovery pipeline.
  • Include a detailed results and Interpretation section that outlines how results will be evaluated and a timeline for dissemination of results to the broader research community.

Milestones:

Specific goals and feasibility milestones must be clear and linked to the timeline for completing the studies in no more than 5 years. Separate milestones should be proposed for each of the 3 study components for assay optimization and testing. The milestones should be quantifiable and scientifically justified. If more than one measure is proposed, separate milestones should be provided for each. Required milestones are expected to address assay measure optimization (1), evaluation of assay performance (2), and mechanistic testing (3). An additional milestone should outline plans and a timeline for dissemination of results, regardless of outcome.

Resource Sharing Plan: Individuals are required to comply with the instructions for the Resource Sharing Plans as provided in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

The following modifications also apply:

  • All applications, regardless of the amount of direct costs requested for any one year, should address a Data Sharing Plan.

While it is understood that many of the approaches and early data generated through this FOA will be at an early proof-of-concept stage, a central goal is to contribute a toolset that facilitates the adoption of robust, experimentally based measures in the early phases of a therapeutic development pipeline for mental illnesses. Regardless of study outcomes or publication status, the experimental protocols and data generated through this FOA will be valuable to the research community by indicating assay measures with ambiguous relationships to brain circuits as well as those poised for assessment of potential predictive value in future cross species comparisons.

Accordingly, all applications are expected to include a detailed Data and Experimental Protocol sharing plan that specifies how data will be shared and who will be responsible for managing sharing of all protocols and data, consistent with achieving the goals of this program.

Applicants should include the following key elements:

  • Description of how protocols and data will be shared as well as schedule/timeline for sharing data.
  • Detailed plans on how data will be made broadly available.
Appendix:
Only limited Appendix materials are allowed. Follow all instructions for the Appendix as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.
PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information
When involving NIH-defined human subjects research, clinical research, and/or clinical trials (and when applicable, clinical trials research experience) follow all instructions for the PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information form in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, with the following additional instructions:

If you answered Yes to the question Are Human Subjects Involved? on the R&R Other Project Information form, you must include at least one human subjects study record using the Study Record: PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information form or Delayed Onset Study record.

Study Record: PHS Human Subjects and Clinical Trials Information

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

Delayed Onset Study

Note: Delayed onset does NOT apply to a study that can be described but will not start immediately (i.e., delayed start).All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

PHS Assignment Request Form
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

Foreign (non-U.S.) institutions must follow policies described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, and procedures for foreign institutions described throughout the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

3. Unique Entity Identifier and System for Award Management (SAM)

See Part 1. Section III.1 for information regarding the requirement for obtaining a unique entity identifier and for completing and maintaining active registrations in System for Award Management (SAM), NATO Commercial and Government Entity (NCAGE) Code (if applicable), eRA Commons, and Grants.gov

4. Submission Dates and Times

Part I. Overview Information contains information about Key Dates and times. Applicants are encouraged to submit applications before the due date to ensure they have time to make any application corrections that might be necessary for successful submission. When a submission date falls on a weekend or Federal holiday , the application deadline is automatically extended to the next business day.

Organizations must submit applications to Grants.gov (the online portal to find and apply for grants across all Federal agencies). Applicants must then complete the submission process by tracking the status of the application in the eRA Commons, NIH’s electronic system for grants administration. NIH and Grants.gov systems check the application against many of the application instructions upon submission. Errors must be corrected and a changed/corrected application must be submitted to Grants.gov on or before the application due date and time. If a Changed/Corrected application is submitted after the deadline, the application will be considered late. Applications that miss the due date and time are subjected to the NIH Policy on Late Application Submission.

Applicants are responsible for viewing their application before the due date in the eRA Commons to ensure accurate and successful submission.

Information on the submission process and a definition of on-time submission are provided in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

5. Intergovernmental Review (E.O. 12372)

This initiative is not subject to intergovernmental review.

6. Funding Restrictions

All NIH awards are subject to the terms and conditions, cost principles, and other considerations described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement .

Pre-award costs are allowable only as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

7. Other Submission Requirements and Information

Applications must be submitted electronically following the instructions described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide. Paper applications will not be accepted.

Applicants must complete all required registrations before the application due date. Section III. Eligibility Information contains information about registration.

For assistance with your electronic application or for more information on the electronic submission process, visit How to Apply Application Guide. If you encounter a system issue beyond your control that threatens your ability to complete the submission process on-time, you must follow the Dealing with System Issues guidance. For assistance with application submission, contact the Application Submission Contacts in Section VII.

Important reminders:

All PD(s)/PI(s) must include their eRA Commons ID in the Credential field of the Senior/Key Person Profile Component of the SF424(R&R) Application Package. Failure to register in the Commons and to include a valid PD/PI Commons ID in the credential field will prevent the successful submission of an electronic application to NIH. See Section III of this FOA for information on registration requirements.

The applicant organization must ensure that the DUNS number it provides on the application is the same number used in the organization’s profile in the eRA Commons and for the System for Award Management. Additional information may be found in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

See more tips for avoiding common errors.

Upon receipt, applications will be evaluated for completeness and compliance with application instructions by the Center for Scientific Review, NIH. Applications that are incomplete or non-compliant will not be reviewed.

Applicants requesting $500,000 or more in direct costs in any year (excluding consortium F&A) must contact a Scientific/ Research Contact at least 6 weeks before submitting the application and follow the Policy on the Acceptance for Review of Unsolicited Applications that Request $500,000 or More in Direct Costs as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

Post Submission Materials
Applicants are required to follow the instructions for post-submission materials, as described in the policy. Any instructions provided here are in addition to the instructions in the policy.

Section V. Application Review Information

1. Criteria

Only the review criteria described below will be considered in the review process. Applications submitted to the NIH in support of the NIH mission are evaluated for scientific and technical merit through the NIH peer review system.

Overall Impact

Reviewers will provide an overall impact score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood for the project to exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) involved, in consideration of the following review criteria and additional review criteria (as applicable for the project proposed).

Scored Review Criteria

Reviewers will consider each of the review criteria below in the determination of scientific merit, and give a separate score for each. An application does not need to be strong in all categories to be judged likely to have major scientific impact. For example, a project that by its nature is not innovative may be essential to advance a field.

Does the project address an important problem or a critical barrier to progress in the field? Is the prior research that serves as the key support for the proposed project rigorous? If the aims of the project are achieved, how will scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice be improved? How will successful completion of the aims change the concepts, methods, technologies, treatments, services, or preventative interventions that drive this field?

Is there a reasonable likelihood that completion of the research objectives could lead to a novel assay that allows for more biologically linked prediction of effects of novel therapeutic treatment candidates from preclinical species to humans? Does the assay measure assess a brain process of relevance to mental illnesses (i.e., is there a reasonable chance that the assay measure could show a difference in patients with mental illnesses)?

Is a strong rationale or is evidence provided to support the choice of manipulation for evaluating the performance of the assay measure?

Are the PD(s)/PI(s), collaborators, and other researchers well suited to the project? If Early Stage Investigators or those in the early stages of independent careers, do they have appropriate experience and training? If established, have they demonstrated an ongoing record of accomplishments that have advanced their field(s)? If the project is collaborative or multi-PD/PI, do the investigators have complementary and integrated expertise; are their leadership approach, governance and organizational structure appropriate for the project?

Does the investigative team have the breadth of expertise to perform all planned experiments?

Does the application challenge and seek to shift current research or clinical practice paradigms by utilizing novel theoretical concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions? Are the concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions novel to one field of research or novel in a broad sense? Is a refinement, improvement, or new application of theoretical concepts, approaches or methodologies, instrumentation, or interventions proposed?

Does the project offer the potential for developing a novel approach for evaluating potential new treatments for mental illnesses?

Are the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses well-reasoned and appropriate to accomplish the specific aims of the project? Have the investigators included plans to address weaknesses in the rigor of prior research that serves as the key support for the proposed project ? Have the investigators presented strategies to ensure a robust and unbiased approach, as appropriate for the work proposed? Are potential problems, alternative strategies, and benchmarks for success presented? If the project is in the early stages of development, will the strategy establish feasibility and will particularly risky aspects be managed? Have the investigators presented adequate plans to address relevant biological variables, such as sex, for studies in vertebrate animals or human subjects?

Evaluation of the approach should emphasize the biological rationale, the ability of the planned experiments to contribute towards building innovative and useful preclinical assays and approaches in a therapeutic development pipeline.

Will proposed studies directly modify the circuits and directly record effects on circuit activity during simultaneous measurement of the physiological or behavioral measure?

Does the application include a subset of experiments to evaluate relationships between brain activity changes and physiological/behavioral assay measures (mechanistic studies of step 3) in response to the same perturbations evaluated in the performance evaluation step 2?

Does the project provide alternate strategies should results suggest the tested circuit is not critical for the measure?

Are power analyses and associated assumptions for the determination of sample size, statistical handling of the data, procedures used for addressing sex as a biological variable, blinding and randomization appropriately detailed?

Are plans for data analysis and interpretation clear? Has the investigator indicated outcomes that would constitute a go/no go decision for further measure development and implementation in a therapeutic discovery pipeline?

Is the choice of neurophysiological and/or behavioral measures well justified in terms of potential relevance to functional deficits in humans with mental illnesses and feasibility to perform the measure in animals in the current project and in humans in future studies?

Does the PD/PI present a solid rationale to support possible conservation of brain processes and circuitry underlying the measures across humans and the preclinical species?

Do the proposed measures have potential to either directly or indirectly assess activity or function within targeted circuits in both the preclinical species and humans in future studies?

Is there a strong rationale behind the choice of preclinical species, assays, and endpoints for all studies?

Are the goals and procedures to be completed in each stage clear and complete?

For step 1, optimization; are goals of the optimization step clear and will attainment of the goals facilitate future comparison of assay performance with humans? Are the strategies appropriate?

For step 2, performance evaluation; is an acceptable rationale provided for the choice of perturbation, including dose, route, and timing of intervention in relation to testing? For example, if the perturbation is a drug, is dose selection based on brain target occupancy?

For step 3, mechanistic testing; are proposed experiments appropriate for testing the involvement of hypothesized circuits in driving the physiological/behavioral assay measures?

If the project involves human subjects and/or NIH-defined clinical research, are the plans to address 1) the protection of human subjects from research risks, and 2) inclusion (or exclusion) of individuals on the basis of sex/gender, race, and ethnicity, as well as the inclusion or exclusion of individuals of all ages (including children and older adults), justified in terms of the scientific goals and research strategy proposed?

Will the scientific environment in which the work will be done contribute to the probability of success? Are the institutional support, equipment and other physical resources available to the investigators adequate for the project proposed? Will the project benefit from unique features of the scientific environment, subject populations, or collaborative arrangements?

Additional Review Criteria
As applicable for the project proposed, reviewers will evaluate the following additional items while determining scientific and technical merit, and in providing an overall impact score, but will not give separate scores for these items.

For research that involves human subjects but does not involve one of the categories of research that are exempt under 45 CFR Part 46, the committee will evaluate the justification for involvement of human subjects and the proposed protections from research risk relating to their participation according to the following five review criteria: 1) risk to subjects, 2) adequacy of protection against risks, 3) potential benefits to the subjects and others, 4) importance of the knowledge to be gained, and 5) data and safety monitoring for clinical trials.

For research that involves human subjects and meets the criteria for one or more of the categories of research that are exempt under 45 CFR Part 46, the committee will evaluate: 1) the justification for the exemption, 2) human subjects involvement and characteristics, and 3) sources of materials. For additional information on review of the Human Subjects section, please refer to the Guidelines for the Review of Human Subjects.

When the proposed project involves human subjects and/or NIH-defined clinical research, the committee will evaluate the proposed plans for the inclusion (or exclusion) of individuals on the basis of sex/gender, race, and ethnicity, as well as the inclusion (or exclusion) of individuals of all ages (including children and older adults) to determine if it is justified in terms of the scientific goals and research strategy proposed. For additional information on review of the Inclusion section, please refer to the Guidelines for the Review of Inclusion in Clinical Research.

The committee will evaluate the involvement of live vertebrate animals as part of the scientific assessment according to the following criteria: (1) description of proposed procedures involving animals, including species, strains, ages, sex, and total number to be used; (2) justifications for the use of animals versus alternative models and for the appropriateness of the species proposed; (3) interventions to minimize discomfort, distress, pain and injury; and (4) justification for euthanasia method if NOT consistent with the AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals. Reviewers will assess the use of chimpanzees as they would any other application proposing the use of vertebrate animals. For additional information on review of the Vertebrate Animals section, please refer to the Worksheet for Review of the Vertebrate Animal Section.

Reviewers will assess whether materials or procedures proposed are potentially hazardous to research personnel and/or the environment, and if needed, determine whether adequate protection is proposed.

For Resubmissions, the committee will evaluate the application as now presented, taking into consideration the responses to comments from the previous scientific review group and changes made to the project.

For Renewals, the committee will consider the progress made in the last funding period.

For Revisions, the committee will consider the appropriateness of the proposed expansion of the scope of the project. If the Revision application relates to a specific line of investigation presented in the original application that was not recommended for approval by the committee, then the committee will consider whether the responses to comments from the previous scientific review group are adequate and whether substantial changes are clearly evident.

Additional Review Considerations
As applicable for the project proposed, reviewers will consider each of the following items, but will not give scores for these items, and should not consider them in providing an overall impact score.

Reviewers will assess whether the project presents special opportunities for furthering research programs through the use of unusual talent, resources, populations, or environmental conditions that exist in other countries and either are not readily available in the United States or augment existing U.S. resources.

Reviewers will assess the information provided in this section of the application, including 1) the Select Agent(s) to be used in the proposed research, 2) the registration status of all entities where Select Agent(s) will be used, 3) the procedures that will be used to monitor possession use and transfer of Select Agent(s), and 4) plans for appropriate biosafety, biocontainment, and security of the Select Agent(s).

Reviewers will comment on whether the following Resource Sharing Plans, or the rationale for not sharing the following types of resources, are reasonable: (1) Data Sharing Plan; (2) Sharing Model Organisms; and (3) Genomic Data Sharing Plan (GDS).

For projects involving key biological and/or chemical resources, reviewers will comment on the brief plans proposed for identifying and ensuring the validity of those resources.

Reviewers will consider whether the budget and the requested period of support are fully justified and reasonable in relation to the proposed research.

2. Review and Selection Process

Applications will be evaluated for scientific and technical merit by (an) appropriate Scientific Review Group(s) convened by the Center for Scientific Review, in accordance with NIH peer review policy and procedures, using the stated review criteria. Assignment to a Scientific Review Group will be shown in the eRA Commons.

As part of the scientific peer review, all applications:
  • May undergo a selection process in which only those applications deemed to have the highest scientific and technical merit (generally the top half of applications under review) will be discussed and assigned an overall impact score.
  • Will receive a written critique.
Applications will be assigned on the basis of established PHS referral guidelines to the appropriate NIH Institute or Center. Applications will compete for available funds with all other recommended applications submitted in response to this FOA. Following initial peer review, recommended applications will receive a second level of review by the appropriate national Advisory Council or Board. The following will be considered in making funding decisions:
  • Scientific and technical merit of the proposed project as determined by scientific peer review.
  • Availability of funds.
  • Relevance of the proposed project to program priorities.

3. Anticipated Announcement and Award Dates

After the peer review of the application is completed, the PD/PI will be able to access his or her Summary Statement (written critique) via the eRA Commons. Refer to Part 1 for dates for peer review, advisory council review, and earliest start date.

Information regarding the disposition of applications is available in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Section VI. Award Administration Information

1. Award Notices

If the application is under consideration for funding, NIH will request "just-in-time" information from the applicant as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

A formal notification in the form of a Notice of Award (NoA) will be provided to the applicant organization for successful applications. The NoA signed by the grants management officer is the authorizing document and will be sent via email to the grantee’s business official.

Awardees must comply with any funding restrictions described in Section IV.5. Funding Restrictions. Selection of an application for award is not an authorization to begin performance. Any costs incurred before receipt of the NoA are at the recipient's risk. These costs may be reimbursed only to the extent considered allowable pre-award costs.

Any application awarded in response to this FOA will be subject to terms and conditions found on the Award Conditions and Information for NIH Grants website. This includes any recent legislation and policy applicable to awards that is highlighted on this website.

2. Administrative and National Policy Requirements

All NIH grant and cooperative agreement awards include the NIH Grants Policy Statement as part of the NoA. For these terms of award, see the NIH Grants Policy Statement Part II: Terms and Conditions of NIH Grant Awards, Subpart A: General and Part II: Terms and Conditions of NIH Grant Awards, Subpart B: Terms and Conditions for Specific Types of Grants, Grantees, and Activities. More information is provided at Award Conditions and Information for NIH Grants.

Recipients of federal financial assistance (FFA) from HHS must administer their programs in compliance with federal civil rights law. This means that recipients of HHS funds must ensure equal access to their programs without regard to a person’s race, color, national origin, disability, age and, in some circumstances, sex and religion. This includes ensuring your programs are accessible to persons with limited English proficiency. HHS recognizes that research projects are often limited in scope for many reasons that are nondiscriminatory, such as the principal investigator’s scientific interest, funding limitations, recruitment requirements, and other considerations. Thus, criteria in research protocols that target or exclude certain populations are warranted where nondiscriminatory justifications establish that such criteria are appropriate with respect to the health or safety of the subjects, the scientific study design, or the purpose of the research.

In accordance with the statutory provisions contained in Section 872 of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2009 (Public Law 110-417), NIH awards will be subject to the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) requirements. FAPIIS requires Federal award making officials to review and consider information about an applicant in the designated integrity and performance system (currently FAPIIS) prior to making an award. An applicant, at its option, may review information in the designated integrity and performance systems accessible through FAPIIS and comment on any information about itself that a Federal agency previously entered and is currently in FAPIIS. The Federal awarding agency will consider any comments by the applicant, in addition to other information in FAPIIS, in making a judgement about the applicant’s integrity, business ethics, and record of performance under Federal awards when completing the review of risk posed by applicants as described in 45 CFR Part 75.205 Federal awarding agency review of risk posed by applicants. This provision will apply to all NIH grants and cooperative agreements except fellowships.

For additional guidance regarding how the provisions apply to NIH grant programs, please contact the Scientific/Research Contact that is identified in Section VII under Agency Contacts of this FOA. HHS provides general guidance to recipients of FFA on meeting their legal obligation to take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to their programs by persons with limited English proficiency. Please see https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/special-topics/limited-english-proficiency/index.html. The HHS Office for Civil Rights also provides guidance on complying with civil rights laws enforced by HHS. Please see https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/section-1557/index.htmlhttps://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-providers/laws-regulations-guidance/index.html. Recipients of FFA also have specific legal obligations for serving qualified individuals with disabilities. Please see https://www.hhs.gov/civil-rights/for-individuals/disability/index.html. Please contact the HHS Office for Civil Rights for more information about obligations and prohibitions under federal civil rights laws at https://www.hhs.gov/ocr/about-us/contact-us/index.html or call 1-800-368-1019 or TDD 1-800-537-7697. Also note it is an HHS Departmental goal to ensure access to quality, culturally competent care, including long-term services and supports, for vulnerable populations. For further guidance on providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services, recipients should review the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care at http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlid=53.

Cooperative Agreement Terms and Conditions of Award
Not Applicable

3. Reporting

When multiple years are involved, awardees will be required to submit the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) annually and financial statements as required in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

A final RPPR, invention statement, and the expenditure data portion of the Federal Financial Report are required for closeout of an award, as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act), includes a requirement for awardees of Federal grants to report information about first-tier subawards and executive compensation under Federal assistance awards issued in FY2011 or later. All awardees of applicable NIH grants and cooperative agreements are required to report to the Federal Subaward Reporting System (FSRS) available at www.fsrs.gov on all subawards over $25,000. See the NIH Grants Policy Statement for additional information on this reporting requirement.

In accordance with the regulatory requirements provided at 45 CFR 75.113 and Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75, recipients that have currently active Federal grants, cooperative agreements, and procurement contracts from all Federal awarding agencies with a cumulative total value greater than $10,000,000 for any period of time during the period of performance of a Federal award, must report and maintain the currency of information reported in the System for Award Management (SAM) about civil, criminal, and administrative proceedings in connection with the award or performance of a Federal award that reached final disposition within the most recent five-year period. The recipient must also make semiannual disclosures regarding such proceedings. Proceedings information will be made publicly available in the designated integrity and performance system (currently FAPIIS). This is a statutory requirement under section 872 of Public Law 110-417, as amended (41 U.S.C. 2313). As required by section 3010 of Public Law 111-212, all information posted in the designated integrity and performance system on or after April 15, 2011, except past performance reviews required for Federal procurement contracts, will be publicly available. Full reporting requirements and procedures are found in Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75 Award Term and Conditions for Recipient Integrity and Performance Matters.

Section VII. Agency Contacts

We encourage inquiries concerning this funding opportunity and welcome the opportunity to answer questions from potential applicants.

Application Submission Contacts

eRA Service Desk (Questions regarding ASSIST, eRA Commons, application errors and warnings, documenting system problems that threaten submission by the due date, and post-submission issues)

Finding Help Online: http://grants.nih.gov/support/ (preferred method of contact)
Telephone: 301-402-7469 or 866-504-9552 (Toll Free)

General Grants Information (Questions regarding application instructions, application processes, and NIH grant resources)
Email: GrantsInfo@nih.gov (preferred method of contact)
Telephone: 301-637-3015

Grants.gov Customer Support (Questions regarding Grants.gov registration and Workspace)
Contact Center Telephone: 800-518-4726
Email: support@grants.gov

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Jamie Driscoll
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-443-5288
Email: jdrisco1@mail.nih.gov

Peer Review Contact(s)

Boris Sokolov, Ph.D.
Center for Scientific Review (CSR)
Telephone: 301-408-9115
Email: ?bsokolov@mail.nih.gov

Financial/Grants Management Contact(s)

Terri Jarosik
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-443-3858
Email: tjarosik@mail.nih.gov

Section VIII. Other Information

Recently issued trans-NIH policy notices may affect your application submission. A full list of policy notices published by NIH is provided in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. All awards are subject to the terms and conditions, cost principles, and other considerations described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Authority and Regulations
Awards are made under the authorization of Sections 301 and 405 of the Public Health Service Act as amended (42 USC 241 and 284) and under Federal Regulations 42 CFR Part 52 and 45 CFR Part 75.


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