Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) for Administrative Supplements: Harmonization and Joint Analysis of Human Brain Single-Cell Datasets
Notice Number:
NOT-NS-23-042

Key Dates

Release Date:

January 30, 2023

First Available Due Date:
May 01, 2023
Expiration Date:
May 02, 2023

Related Announcements

PA-20-272 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)

Issued by

National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)

National Eye Institute (NEI)

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

All applications to this funding opportunity announcement should fall within the mission of the Institutes/Centers. The following NIH Offices may co-fund applications assigned to those Institutes/Centers.

Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)

Purpose

The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research (BP) is soliciting Administrative Supplement applications that support the joint analysis of existing disease-focused and Brain Research Through Advancing Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative-generated “control” datasets of single-cell/nucleus data from human brain.

The NIH BRAIN Initiative is making major investments in generating single-cell omics data from human brain tissue with the goal of contributing to a reference atlas of cell types in the normal human brain (BICAN, BICCN). These efforts are, and will be, generating large amounts of whole genome data on RNA expression, chromatin state, and DNA methylation from brain tissue of control subjects (subjects without neurological disorders) at the single-cell and single-nucleus level. In parallel, NIH support for single-cell/nucleus omics in the disordered or diseased human brain has been rising exponentially, mainly due to increased support from NIH Blueprint institutes. The large rise in this type of data presents challenges of storage, curation, and harmonization of datasets, but also provides unique opportunities for leveraging high-quality datasets from brain tissue across the disease spectrum for joint analysis. This includes the use of high-resolution BRAIN Initiative-generated reference data as common and widely available control data for use in disease-focused studies, and the inclusion of disease-focused single-cell/nucleus datasets in ongoing efforts mapping “normal” brain cell types.

This effort aims support pilot projects that harmonize and jointly analyze datasets from both neurotypical and diseased brains. To this end, the NIH BP is soliciting supplement applications that support the integration of disease-focused single-cell/nucleus omics datasets with BRAIN Initiative-generated “neurotypical” or “normative” datasets from human brain tissue.

Eligibility

Projects that are currently funded to analyze single-cell/nucleus datasets from human pre- or post-mortem brain tissue are eligible to apply. Projects that do not have an active analysis component are not eligible. This supplement program strongly encourages direct collaborations between investigators funded by the BRAIN Initiative and investigators funded by participating NIH BP Institutes or Centers.

The supplement will support the inclusion of new datasets into analysis-focused projects that are within scope of the active award. The analysis of single-cell/nucleus data from human brain tissue must be a funded activity of the active award. The supplemental funding is intended to support the ingestion of outside datasets, harmonization of datasets, joint analysis, as well as common storage and broad sharing via an NIH supported and designated database (TBD).

Supplemental funding will not support data generation, analysis of non-human data, analysis of non-brain tissues, or the generation of harmonized datasets that lack a clearly described plan for timely deposition (12 months from start date) for broad sharing.

Examples of existing resources housing human brain single-cell omics data:

Review Process

Proposals submitted in response to this NOSI will be administratively reviewed by program staff from the NIH Blueprint Human Single-Cell Team.

In addition to the general criteria listed in PA-20-272, supplement applications responding to this NOSI will be evaluated using the following criteria:

  • Is the proposed work within the scope of the parent award, i.e., does it include datasets proposed in the parent award?
  • Is the scientific rationale for co-analysis of the proposed datasets clearly described?
  • Are the methods of harmonization and analysis well-described and appropriate?

Award Budget

  • The requested budget must be well-justified and reflect the actual needs of the harmonization and analysis activities proposed.
  • Application budget requests should not exceed $250,000 in direct costs per year.
  • Annual award budgets cannot exceed the annual budget of the primary award.
  • Regardless of budget level, the supplement project period must not exceed one year.
  • Primary awards must be active and not in no-cost extension, and proposed budget period cannot exceed the project period of the primary award.

Application and Submission Information

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

  • PA-20-272 - 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-20-272 must be followed, with the following additions:

  • Application Due Date(s) – May 1, 2023, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
  • For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-NS-23-042” (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.
  • The Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 6 pages.
  • Requests may be for one year of support only.
  • Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the program contact at the Institute supporting the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this FOA in order to facilitate efficient processing of the request.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Daniel Miller, Ph.D.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Telephone: 301-496-5680
Email: daniel.miller@nih.gov