Notice Number: NOT-AI-12-050

Key Dates
Release Date: September 12, 2012

Issued by
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

Purpose

This Notice is to inform potential applicants that the NIAID is revising RFA-AI-12-028, “Understanding the Functions of Uncharacterized Genes in Infectious Disease Pathogens (U19),” to clarify the “Research Goals and Objectives” section of the FOA.

The following modification to this FOA is being made:

Part 2. Full Text of Announcement
Section I. Funding Opportunity Description

Research Goals and Objectives

CURRENT LANGUAGE:
Research projects for each award in the program will focus on generating experimental evidence to determine the biochemical function(s) of hypothetical genes, unknown open reading frames (ORFs), and the function(s) of noncoding RNAs.  While the goal of this program is to determine the functions of as many genes as possible, all applicants must propose to study a minimum of 10 genes per year in each of the three categories of uncharacterized genes and include a focus on one or more NIAID Category A-C pathogens and Emerging/Re-Emerging pathogens. 

NEW LANGUAGE:
Research projects for each award in the program will focus on generating experimental evidence to determine the biochemical function(s) of hypothetical genes, unknown open reading frames (ORFs), and the function(s) of noncoding RNAs.  While the goal of this program is to determine the functions of as many genes as possible, all applicants must propose to study a minimum of 10 genes per year in each of the three categories of uncharacterized genes that exist within the genome of the pathogen(s) to be studied, and include a focus on one or more pathogens from the NIAID List of Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/emerging/pages/list.aspx), which includes NIAID Category A-C Priority Pathogens.  As noted previously, very limited funding is available for pathogens that are not included on the NIAID List of Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases.

All other aspects of the FOA remain unchanged.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Maria Y. Giovanni, Ph.D.
Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Room 4807, MSC-6603
6610 Rockledge Drive
Bethesda, MD 20892-6603
Telephone:  301-496-1884
FAX: 301-480-4528
Email: mgiovanni@niaid.nih.gov