Release Date: April 19, 2011
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
The Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, NIAID has a requirement to establish multi-disciplinary centers that focus on understanding at a molecular level the host-pathogen interaction using a systems biology approach. The primary goal of the activities carried out under this contract will be to investigate and identify the metabolic, regulatory, signaling, and other biological pathways generated by host-pathogen molecular interactions to help explain and predict clinical manifestations of infectious diseases, host responses, disease progression, and outcomes. Studies will focus on persistent or recurrent infections with well-defined, highly-specific phenotypes. Examples of such infections include, for example, tuberculosis, malaria, leishmaniasis, histoplasmosis, and infections caused by cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, herpes virus, Salmonella spp., Group A streptococci, and Chlamydia trachomatis. Although a systems biology approach could be used to investigate complex biological events, such as cell behavior or microbial communities, the focus of this contract is only on molecular cellular events of the interaction of the pathogen and the host, such as those involved in the biological, biochemical and biophysical processes of microbial organisms or in pathogenesis and disease progression in humans.
Each multi-disciplinary center, composed of teams of investigators with a wide breadth of skills and scientific and technical expertise, will carry out these investigations through one or more Research Projects. The research findings of such projects should have the potential to be applicable or relevant to a variety of pathogenic organisms, which may help to identify common molecular mechanisms that cause persistent and recurrent infections and should lead to a better understanding of the biological, biochemical and biophysical processes of host-pathogen interaction or of the initiation and progression of infectious diseases in humans. Examples of Research Projects include:
- predict, identify and quantify changes in expression of the transcriptome or proteome of both the host and the microbial organism in a human macrophage culture model during various stages of persistent and recurrent infection of the host.
- predict, identify and quantify the transcriptional, regulatory and metabolic response of the host's immune response system in various stages of persistent and recurrent infection.
- develop models that predict metabolic and regulatory networks that will facilitate the identification of genes that may be coding for virulence determinants and contribute towards the progression of persistent and recurrent infection and disease in different host cells; verify experimentally.
- apply transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics profiling to assay the network state of infected host cell cultures; develop a predictive model and validate in infected human tissue for persistent or chronic infections.
Research Projects conducted under this contract should employ a combination of innovative, experimental systems biology approaches, including high-throughput "omics" technologies, such as transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, glycomics or lipidomics. Rigorous novel algorithms and analytical methods, including bioinformatics should also be included. It is expected that integrated data sets will be used to build mathematical models of host-pathogen interactions that can be validated by experimental approaches, explaining the molecular basis of clinical manifestations of infectious diseases, including severity and response to treatment and vaccines. Furthermore, results obtained from these studies should identify novel, unique, as well as common molecular signatures that may represent future targets for intervention and could aid in the identification of emerging pathogens and in the development of drugs, immunotherapies, vaccines and diagnostics for prevention and treatment of diseases caused by potential agents of bioterrorism and emerging/reemerging infectious diseases.
Please Note the Following:
- This contract will not cover costs associated with human sample collection.
- This requirement will NOT support studies on HIV/AIDS.
- This contract will NOT support studies that focus exclusively on the molecular interaction networks of the microbe with no consideration of those in the host cells, and vice versa.
Examples of research areas that are not responsive include:
- analysis of the microbial response to infection in absence
of the host response to infection;
- analysis of host response to infection in the absence of microbial pathogenesis studies;
- analysis of the host control of expression and signaling through innate immune receptors without focus of host-pathogen interaction;
- dissection of the molecules and pathways involved in the regulation of the adaptive immune system without focus of the host-pathogen interaction; and
- studies of host pathways that regulate antibody production to pathogens.
The detailed solicitation (RFP: NIAID-DMID-NIHAI2010100) is available on FedBizOpps at: http://www.fbo.gov, with instructions for submission of proposals and evaluation criteria.
Please direct all inquiries to:
Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Division of Extramural Activities
Office of Acquisitions
6700-B Rockledge Drive
Room 3153, MSC 7612
Bethesda, MD 20892-7612
George Kennedy
Contract Specialist
Office of Acquisitions, Division of Extramural Activities, NIAID, NIH, DHHS
6700-B Rockledge Drive, Room 3153, MSC 7612
Bethesda, MD 20892-7612
Phone 301-451-2607
Fax 301-480-2248
Email: [email protected]
and Human Services (HHS)
