NIGMS is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight the urgent need for research on SARS-CoV-2 and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Background

Coronaviruses are a diverse family of viruses that cause a range of disease in humans and animals, and there are currently no approved coronavirus vaccines or therapeutics. In January 2020, a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was identified as the causative agent of an outbreak of viral pneumonia centered around Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Current information regarding confirmed cases is changing daily and can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website and through other sources. Transmission characteristics and the associated morbidity and mortality are not completely understood, but there is clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. Many other aspects of viral pathogenesis, natural history, and host range are poorly understood. Given this, there is an urgent public health need to better understand SARS-CoV-2, particularly to improve the predictive quality of existing models of virus spread.

Research Objectives

NIGMS will accept applications for Competitive Revisions to active U24 awards for eligible organizations to rapidly provide pilot or supplementary funds to researchers studying the development of predictive models for the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and outcomes of possible COVID-19 public health intervention measures in order to accelerate such research.

Eligible organizations are those with an active NIGMS U24 award responsible for storing, managing, and promoting the shared efforts of a network of researchers studying the modeling of infectious diseases.

Application and Submission Information

Applications in response to this NOSI must be submitted to PA-18-935 "Urgent Competitive Revision to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Urgent Supplement - Clinical Trial Optional)", which is intended to provide funds for NIH grantees applying to expand the scope of their active U24 award. The activity code will be the same as that of the parent award.

Competitive revision applications to PA-18-935 must use the application form package with the Competition ID of “NOT-GM-20-027-FORMS-E."

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-18-935 must be followed, with the following additions:

• Application Due Date(s) May 5, 2020 by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization
• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-GM-20-027” (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.
• Requests may be for one year of support only.
• Application budgets are limited to no more than the amount of the current parent award and must reflect the actual needs of the proposed project.
• The parent award must be active when the application is submitted.
• The Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 3 pages. The Research Strategy should briefly describe a plan for rapidly soliciting, reviewing and selecting the awarded projects, and collecting and sharing outcomes information resulting from the projects. The plan should include information on constituting the review panel, their qualifications and expertise. Research plans for individual projects should not be included in the application.

Review Process

Applications will be evaluated for scientific and technical merit by an appropriate internal review panel convened by NIGMS staff, in accordance with the review criteria specified in the FOA as well as these additional review criteria:

Is the overall strategy well-designed to accomplish the rapid solicitation, review, and selection of meritorious projects? Are there adequate plans in place for how a review panel that includes appropriate qualifications and expertise will be constituted? Have adequate plans been described for the collection and sharing of outcomes information resulting from the projects?

Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the program contact listed below when a request has been submitted in response to this FOA in order to facilitate efficient processing of the request.