Notice Number: NOT-DA-19-041

Key Dates
Release Date: July 12, 2019
First Available Due Date: October 5, 2019
Expiration Date: January 8, 2022

PA-19-056: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-19-055: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required)

PA-19-091: Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required)

PA-19-052: NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-19-092: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)

PA-19-053: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

PA-19-054: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Required)

Issued by
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice is to inform potential applications to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to encourage grant applications that will use big data analytics to reveal deeper or novel insights into the biological and behavioral processes associated with substance use and addiction by developing more powerful analytical methods and visualization tools that can help capture the richness of different data types and across scales of analysis; including molecular, clinical, and electronic health records. Applications should develop and/or utilize computational approaches for analyzing large, complex datasets acquired from drug addiction research.

Background

National investments in basic research are poised to accelerate discoveries in neuroscience, genetics, and health service research. Additionally, a shift in culture is promoting open access and data sharing to allow diverse data sets to be broadly accessible to researchers. Advances in information technologies and analytics capabilities are producing extraordinary capacity and opportunity to integrate and analyze these data, thereby enabling novel research into complex disorders such as drug abuse and addiction that are driven by the dynamic interactions of diverse biological, social, organizational, environmental, and behavioral mediators. The result is an emerging era of research with unique opportunities to leverage volumes of data in new ways and turning vast datasets of complex information into the next discoveries.

Research Objectives

NIDA is interested in harnessing big data analytics to gain new knowledge related to the neurobiological and behavioral changes that are consequences of, or that underlie, drug use and addiction. Analyses may involve one or more data sets or knowledge sources but should address fundamental research questions associated with substance abuse research and also develop computational tools (e.g., aggregated datasets, standards, analytic software) facilitating future analysis of substance abuse research data. Primary data may be of multiple types and formats, and available through sources which include, but are not limited to, large databases and repositories of existing data, publicly available information (e.g., Twitter data), images, videos, and EHR records.

Examples of approaches that are encouraged include, but are not limited to:

• Applications across the entire range of science supported by NIDA, from basic biological and neurobiological mechanisms to new techniques for epidemiological surveillance to health services research to complex, multi-level approaches
• Collaborations with investigators holding private data sets, using innovative statistical strategies to link datasets, and utilizing public use and administrative data readily available
• The activities necessary to accomplish analyses, such as locating, verifying, and evaluating data sets and preparing them for semantic and computational interoperability

Areas of programmatic interest to NIDA include:

• Translational integration between animal and human research data by using dimensionality reduction such as principal component or factor analysis
• Development of software able to analyze large, complex datasets commonly acquired during drug abuse research (e.g., longitudinal analysis of calcium imaging data over the temporal course of self-administration; analysis of temporal geospatial data from mHealth studies)
• Dimensionality reduction allowing visualization of high-dimensional data
• Expanding on findings conducted with grand mean or within animal averaging by using single trial analyses or other high-resolution investigations of research data
• Investigating individual variability on self-administration behavioral data to explore resilience and vulnerability factors
• Development of tools using automated analysis and machine learning classification of big data, including behavioral data
• Developing methods to integrate and analyze multiple sources of data (i.e., imaging, genetics, EHR, mobile device, etc.)

Application and Submission Information:

This notice applies to due dates on or after October 5, 2019 and subsequent receipt dates through January 8, 2022.

Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) or any reissues of these announcement through the expiration date of this notice.

• PA-19-056: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-19-055: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required)
• PA-19-091: Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Required)
• PA-19-052: NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-19-092: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)
• PA-19-053: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-19-054: NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Required)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and the funding opportunity announcement used for submission must be followed, with the following additions:

• For funding consideration, applicants must include "NOT-DA-19-041" (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.

Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will be not be considered for the NOSI initiative.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Susan Wright, PhD
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Telephone: (301) 402-6683
Email: susan.wright@nih.gov