Notice of Special Interest: Alzheimer s-focused Administrative Supplements for NIH/NCI Grants that are not focused on Alzheimer’s Disease NOT-CA-20-019

Key Dates

Related Announcements

NOT-AG-20-008

PA-18-591

Issued by

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Purpose

This Notice of Special Interest informs Program Directors/Principal Investigators (PDs/PIs) holding active awards from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the possibility of developing and submitting administrative supplement applications to expand existing awards that are not focused currently on Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias (AD/ADRD), including Frontotemporal Dementia, Lewy Body Dementia, Vascular Cognitive Impairment/Dementia, and multiple etiology dementias, to develop a focus on AD/ADRD.

The opportunity for active NCI awards to benefit from this administrative supplement program is high. Aging is a significant risk factor for most adult-onset cancers and Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias. Examples of NCI research areas that might qualify for this administrative supplement program include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Biologic and genetic mechanisms of cancer and aging
• Preclinical drug/drug combination development in an aging context
• Cancer- and cancer treatment-related neurocognitive function
• Treatment tolerability, toxicity, and symptom management
• Behavioral and social risk factors and outcomes
• Attention, sensation, and perception
• Geriatric assessment
• Epidemiologic cohort studies of cancer risk or survivorship
• Premature/accelerated/accentuated aging in those with a history of cancer
• Financial toxicity
• Cancer caregiving
• Clinical trial development for, and accrual of, older adults
• Transitions in care and models of health care delivery
• Multimorbidity/multiple chronic conditions
• Imaging and image-guided cancer intervention
• Computational methods, biostatistical tools, and measurement development

While not a research area per se, the inclusion of underserved and understudied populations in research studies is encouraged.

Principal Investigators are encouraged to confer with the NCI scientific program officer for the parent award requesting supplemental funds under this Notice of Special Interest, especially if the PD/PI is uncertain whether the project has an Alzheimer’s focus as defined by NIH. NIA hosts a website (https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/grants-funding/alzheimers-disease-administrative-supplements) that provides details on how Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementias are defined and provides some examples of currently supported research. Awards that currently focus on research on Alzheimer’s disease or its related dementias are not eligible for this program.

As administrative supplements, the work proposed needs to be within the scope of the research or training that is already supported. Center awards and resource awards are most likely to be able to justify these supplements as they tend to have a broad content scope.

Active awards with project end dates in FY 2021 or later are eligible. The award may not be in terminal no-cost extension or going into no-cost extension in FY 2020. Further, NCI may evaluate the budgetary impact of the administrative supplement (e.g., high carryover risk). For that reason, it is useful to confer with the NCI grants specialist and the NCI program officer supporting the parent award when planning the request.

Review Process

NCI will conduct administrative reviews of applications submitted to eligible NCI parent awards. NIA will make funds available for at least 10 awards from each of the participating ICs, provided that sufficient funds are available.

Criteria:

1. Is the work proposed within the scope of the active award?
2. Is the work proposed focused on Alzheimer’s disease or its related dementias?
3. Is the work likely to stimulate additional activity leading to progress on any, or all, of these dementias?

Description of circumstances for which administrative supplements are available.

Application and Submission Information

Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity or its subsequent reissued equivalent.

• 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 March 6, 2020, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
• For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-CA-20-019 (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.
• Only electronic submissions will be accepted for this funding opportunity. Use one of the methods described in PA-18-591. Paper submissions and applications submitted as attachments will be returned.
• Requests may be for one year of support only.
• Individual requests can be no more than $250,000 in direct costs exclusive of Facilities and Administrative costs on sub-contracts. Although supplement requests are not limited to one per award, we will consider substantial additional funding to an award as beyond the scope of the funded award.
• 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.
• As part of the application, investigators should submit an abstract of the proposed research that shows the relevance to Alzheimer’s disease and/or its related dementias. Place the abstract in the Project Summary/Abstract section of the SF424 (R&R) form. The work may include pilot projects or resource development.
• Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the NCI program officer and NCI grants management specialist who have stewardship of the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this FOA.
• Eligible NCI grantees should email Dr. Paige Green ([email protected]) with their intention to apply in order to facilitate efficient processing of the request.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Paige Green, Ph.D., M.P.H.
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Telephone: 240-276-6899
Email: [email protected]