Notice Number: NOT-HG-20-006

Key Dates

Issued by
National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)

Purpose

The National Human Genome Research Institute intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications to support a Coordinating Center for Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) Methods and Analysis for Populations of Diverse Ancestry. The intended FOA will be based on a concept recently approved by the National Advisory Council on Human Genome Research and accompanying discussion (https://www.genome.gov/sites/default/files/media/files/2019-09/Sept2019_Council_Hindorff_PolygenicRiskScore_RFA_Concept.pdf and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0-hw7DoOQU).

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 January, 2020 with an expected application due date in Summer, 2020.

This FOA will utilize the U01 activity code. Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Research Initiative Details

The goal of the intended FOA is to establish a Coordinating Center to provide overall logistical and scientific support and data science leadership for a consortium that will collaboratively generate and refine PRS for populations of diverse ancestry by integrating existing datasets with genomic and phenotype data for a range of complex diseases and traits. Together with Centers for PRS Methods and Analysis for Populations of Diverse Ancestry (described in a separate Notice), grantees funded under the intended FOA will form a consortium with the primary objectives of: 1) leveraging genetic diversity to improve the applicability of PRS and develop methods to predict health and disease risk across diverse populations, and for a broad range of health and disease measures; and 2) optimizing the integration of large-scale, harmonized genomic and phenotype data to facilitate collaborative analysis, dissemination of PRS-related data, and development of related methods and resources. Grantees funded under the intended Centers and Coordinating Center FOAs will work collaboratively to address the following scientific challenges and opportunities:

1. Standardizing genomic and phenotype data, and mapping to existing ontologies.
2. Developing methods for and consensus approaches to incorporate ancestry information into PRS.
3. Developing and applying methods to generate PRS for diverse populations and refining PRS to improve risk prediction.
4. Optimizing the integration of data according to FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) practices and policies. Data sharing practices will be developed to enable analyses across the consortium; data sharing and outreach to the scientific community is also expected.
5. Disseminating PRS results publicly in the form of summary statistics datasets, algorithms, publications, and related resources.
6. Validating PRS in clinical settings by engaging ongoing genomic medicine efforts.
7. Identifying secondary uses of the data related to health and disease research and making data available for such uses, consistent with participants consent.

Recognizing that the funded PRS Centers may not capture all available diverse cohorts, the CC would also identify and invite researchers representing high priority cohorts to participate as affiliate members and provide limited genotyping and analysis support for them if needed.

Funding Information

Estimated Total Funding NHGRI intends to commit approximately $8.8 million from FY21-FY25.
Expected Number of Awards One
Estimated Award Ceiling A budget for total costs of no more than $1.6 million/year [HL([1] for each of five years
Primary CFDA Numbers 93.172

Anticipated Eligible Organizations

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to: