Notice Number: NOT-AT-19-002

Key Dates

Release Date: October 09, 2018
Estimated Publication Date of Funding Opportunity Announcement: November 15, 2018
First Estimated Application Due Date: April 18, 2019
Earliest Estimated Award Date: July 01, 2020
Earliest Estimated Start Date: July 01, 2020

Related Announcements
NOT-AT-19-003
NOT-OD-19-013
RFA-AT-19-003

Issued by
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS)

Purpose

The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), with the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS), intends to promote a new initiative by publishing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications for research that will improve on and strengthen technology and methodology used in natural products research. The Center for Natural Product technology, Methodology and Productivity Optimization (NP-TEMPO), supported through the U41 Cooperative Agreement funding mechanism, is expected to overcome existing research limitations by developing and/or adapting cutting edge, innovative approaches and technologies that will have significant impact on the chemical and biological annotation of natural products. This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects. The FOA is expected to be published in Fall 2018 with an expected application due date in Spring 2019. Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Research Initiative Details

This FOA is being released in conjunction with the Natural Products NMR Open Data Exchange and the ODS Botanical Dietary Supplement Research Centers Program. Collectively, the awards under these FOA constitute the NCCIH/ODS NIH Consortium for Advancing Research on Botanical and Other Natural Products (CARBON) Program. Applicants applying under this NP-TEMPO FOA are encouraged to collaborate, where appropriate, with the NODE, the Botanical Dietary Supplement Research Centers, and other NCCIH, ODS, and NIH supported grantees.

Natural products have a long and impressive history as sources of medicine and as important biological research tools. Despite this remarkable track record, pharmaceutical, government and academic investments have steadily declined over the past two decades. This shift is often attributed, in part, to persistent technological challenges that have not been adequately addressed. Many of the techniques for studying complex mixtures of natural products have not taken full advantage of advances in biological, chemical, and computational methodology. To move the field forward, there must be a renewed emphasis on overcoming methodological and technological hurdles that hinder advances in natural products research. Doing so will make natural products research a more productive endeavor and allow it to seamlessly integrate with other fields of science that operate at high throughput.

This initiative is focused on the development and dissemination of technologies for the chemical and biological investigation and annotation of complex natural products. Improvements are needed in many areas of natural product research. Applicants should strive to address as many of these challenges as possible in their applications. Examples of needed technological advances that would be appropriate for this FOA include, but are not limited to:

• High content phenotypic assays that can capture a broad range of biological activity without a priori knowledge of mechanism or active constituents
• Network pharmacology approaches to help establish relationships of biological activities in complex mixtures and/or isolated constituents
• Biochemometric approaches to rapidly identify active constituents and/or synergists in complex mixtures
• Development and validation of novel computational tools that integrate multiple dimensions of chemical and biological data such as interactions between orally consumed complex natural products, gut microbiome, and biological outcomes.

For the purposes of this FOA, natural products include vitamins, minerals, and probiotics as well as small molecules derived from plants, fungi, bacteria, marine organisms or animals. They may also exist along a spectrum of complexity from crude extracts to purified constituents.

Funding Information

Estimated Total Funding Up to $2,100,000.
Expected Number of Awards 2
Estimated Award Ceiling Application budgets are limited to $700K in Direct Costs but need to reflect the actual needs of the proposed project.
Primary CFDA Numbers 93.213; 93.321

Anticipated Eligible Organizations

Public/State Controlled Institution of Higher Education
Private Institution of Higher Education
Nonprofit with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institution of Higher Education)
Nonprofit without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institution of Higher Education)
Small Business
For-Profit Organization (Other than Small Business)
State Government
Indian/Native American Tribal Government (Federally Recognized)
County governments
City or township governments
Special district governments
Independent school districts
Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
Indian/Native American Tribally Designated Organization (Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
U.S. Territory or Possession
Indian/Native American Tribal Government (Other than Federally Recognized)
Regional Organization

Applications are not being solicited at this time.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to: