Notice Number: NOT-AI-19-033
Key Dates
Release Date:January 29, 2019
Response Date:March 08, 2019
None
Issued by
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Purpose
This Request for Information (RFI) invites comments and suggestions on NIAID’s key strategic approaches to advance antibacterial resistance (AR) research.
NOTE:It is important to read this entire RFI notice to ensure an adequate response is prepared and to have a full understanding of how your response will be utilized.
Background
In 2014, NIAID published Antibacterial Resistance Program: Current Status and Future Directions, a research framework that described NIAID’s approach to combat AR through basic, translational and clinical research and laid out areas for intensified research to combat AR. Key elements of this framework were amplified in the USG’s National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria. The strategic approaches outlined in the 2014 framework are listed below; each has been followed by workshops, targeted funding opportunities, or both:
- Systems Biology and Antibacterial Resistance: New Directions for Drug Discovery Using a holistic approach to examine molecular networks of host-pathogen interactions and global changes in response to drug exposure.
- Harnessing the Immune System to Combat Bacterial Infections Enhancing host immune response through immunological interventions and immunotherapeutics.
- Disarm, But Leave Unharmed: Exploring Anti-Virulence Strategies Targeting bacterial virulence factors without directly killing bacteria is less likely to induce selective pressure.
- Synthetic Microbiota: An Ecobiological Approach Designing microbial communities as biologic products to mitigate infectious diseases and their sequelae.
- Less is Better: Diagnostics to Guide Use of Narrow-Spectrum Therapeutics Decreasing selective pressure by enabling the use of therapeutics targeted to a pathogen or group of pathogens.
- Exploiting Natural Predators: The Specificity of Phage Therapy Using phage or phage-derived lysins to kill specific bacteria while preserving microbiota.
- Teaching Old Drugs New Tricks: Extending the Clinical Utility of Antibacterial Drugs Optimizing use of existing drugs and combination therapies to suppress emergence of resistance and minimize toxicity.
Information Requested
NIAID is updating and refining the AR framework for 2019 and beyond and is seeking public input into strategic approaches that should be emphasized over the next five years. NIAID is specifically seeking input into the following:
1. Input on additional research activities needed to help advance the above-listed strategic approaches.
2. Input on additional strategic approaches or technologies that have the potential to transform our understanding of and ability to prevent, diagnose and/or treat resistant bacterial infections that should be further investigated.
How to Submit a Response
All comments must be submitted electronically to the following mailbox: NIAIDAntibioticResistanceRFI2019@niaid.nih.gov.
Responses (no longer than 500 words in MS Word or pdf format) must be received by 11:59:59 pm (ET) on March 8th, 2019 . You will see an electronic confirmation acknowledging receipt of your response.
Responses to this RFI are voluntary.Do not include any proprietary, classified, confidential, trade secret, or sensitive information in your response.The responses will be reviewed by NIH staff, and individual feedback will not be provided to any responder. The Government will use the information submitted in response to this RFI at its discretion. The Government reserves the right to use any submitted information on public NIH websites, in reports, in summaries of the state of the science, in any possible resultant solicitation(s), grant(s), or cooperative agreement(s), or in the development of future funding opportunity announcements.
This RFI is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation, grant, or cooperative agreement, or as an obligation on the part of the Federal Government, the NIH, or individual NIH Institutes and Centers to provide support for any ideas identified in response to it. The Government will not pay for the preparation of any information submitted or for the Government’s use of such information. No basis for claims against the U.S. Government shall arise as a result of a response to this request for information or from the Government’s use of such information.
We look forward to your input and hope that you will share this RFI document with your colleagues.
Inquiries
Please direct all inquiries to:
Jane Knisely, Ph.D.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Telephone: 240-627-3289
Email: Jane.Knisely@nih.gov
and Human Services (HHS)
