It is critical that applicants follow the Research (R) Instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, except where instructed to do otherwise (in this FOA or in a Notice from the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts). Conformance to all requirements (both in the Application Guide and the FOA) is required and strictly enforced. Applicants must read and follow all application instructions in the Application Guide as well as any program-specific instructions noted in Section IV. When the program-specific instructions deviate from those in the Application Guide, follow the program-specific instructions. Applications that do not comply with these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review.

Part 1. Overview Information
Part 2. Full Text of the Announcement

Section I. Funding Opportunity Description
Section II. Award Information
Section III. Eligibility Information
Section IV. Application and Submission Information
Section V. Application Review Information
Section VI. Award Administration Information
Section VII. Agency Contacts
Section VIII. Other Information

This FOA is a part of the Implementation Phase of the NIH Common Fund program, Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG). All Common Fund initiatives invite investigators to develop bold, innovative, and often risky approaches to address problems that may seem intractable or to seize new opportunities that offer the potential for rapid progress.

The human genome has revealed a great deal about the human proteome, though significant portions remain understudied. Only a subset of expressed proteins demonstrates the requisite properties to serve as targets for the development of therapeutics. Many bona fide drug targets likely remain to be discovered in the Druggable Genome (DG), which has been defined as the subset of the ~30,000 genes in the human genome that express proteins potentially able to bind drug-like molecules. The term "drug-like" refers to the physical, biochemical, and pharmacological attributes of small molecule compounds that are generally recognized to be required for efficacious clinical drugs in humans. While the number of proteins in the DG is upwards of 6,000, the existing clinical pharmacopeia is represented by only a few hundred targets, leaving a huge swath of biology that remains unexploited.

The discovery of a disease association or the development of a useful tool reagent can accelerate research into a previous understudied protein, such as was the case for BRAF. Thus, while many interesting and critical biological processes and potential therapeutic avenues remain unexplored because an initial, catalyzing event has not yet occurred, the IDG Program will address this bottleneck by systematically querying these understudied proteins to find phenotypic associations and develop useful research tools.

While at the informatics level, genome- and proteome-wide tools can collate information and query all proteins, technical feasibility necessitates a narrower focus of experimental efforts into protein families for which there are definable understudied members along with existing technologies that can be readily adapted at the scale necessary for wholesale elucidation of their function and generation of tools. During the Pilot Phase of the IDG, it was determined that the experimental focus of the IDG will be on the understudied members in the families of non-olfactory GPCRs, ion channels, and protein kinases, as these families contain adequate numbers of understudied members and are well-established druggable families with high potential to impact human health once disease associations are made. While there are numerous valid approaches to defining understudied proteins, for the purpose of the IDG Program the NIH determined that use of bibliometric measures, e.g., the Jensen PubMed Score (JS; a fractional count of publications correcting for a number of sources of false positives) coupled with a lack of R01 funding was the most useful in terms of identifying a common, working definition of understudied proteins. At the time of preparation of these FOAs, 395 of the 1325 proteins in the GPCR, ion channel, and protein kinase families met these criteria; 143 GPCRs, 118 ion channels, and 134 kinases had a JS < 50, no R01s, and a PubTator score < 150.The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee symbols for the protein targets that will be the initial focus of the IDG Program can be found here:

Kinases

PRKAG1, PRKAB1, ADCK2, ADCK5, ALPK3, ADCK4, ALPK2, BCKDK, CAMKV, CDKL3, CDKL4, CDKL1, CDKL2, CDK15, CDK17, CDK11B, CDK14, CDK18, CLK4, CDK10, CLK3, CSNK2A2, DGKH, DYRK3, DYRK1B, DYRK4, EEF2K, DYRK2, ERN2, FASTK, GK2, HIPK4, ITPKA, CSNK1G3, CSNK1G2, PRKACG, CSNK1G1, ITPK1, PSKH2, CAMK1D, TK2, PRKACB, PNCK, CAMK1G, CAMKK1, PSKH1, PHKA1, RPS6KC1, PRKCQ, LMTK3, MARK4, MAST3, LRRK1, MAP3K14, LTK, MAP3K10, MAST4, MAST2, MAPK15, MAPK4, MKNK2, CDC42BPG, CDC42BPB, NEK11, NEK5, NEK10, NIM1K, NEK4, NEK6, NRK, NEK7, SCYL1, NRBP2, PIK3C2G, PAK7, PANK3, PIK3C2B, PAK3, PAK6, SCYL3, PDIK1L, PIP4K2C, PIP5K1A, PLK5, PHKG1, PHKG2, PI4KA, PIP5K1B, PKMYT1, PKN3, PRPF4B, TP53RK, PRKRA, PRKY, PXK, RIOK1, RIOK3, RPS6KL1, SBK2, SCYL2, SBK3, SGK494, POMK, SGK223, SRPK3, STK32C, STK33, STK32B, STK40, STK17A, STK36, STK32A, STK38L, STKLD1, STK3, STK31, TESK2, TESK1, TBCK, TLK1, TPK1, TLK2, TSSK6, TSSK1B, TTBK2, TSSK4, TTBK1, TSSK3, UCK1, ULK4, UCK2, WNK2, VRK2, WEE2

Ion channels

HTR3B, HTR3E, HTR3D, CHRNB2, HTR3C, CHRND, CHRNB1, CHRNA10, CHRNA2, CHRNA9, CHRNG, ASIC4, ASIC5, BEST4, CACNA2D1, CACNA2D3, CACNA2D4, CACNB1, CACNB2, CACNB3, CACNA2D2, CACNG6, CACNA1F, CACNB4, CACNG1, CACNG5, CACNG3, CACNG7, CACNG4, CACNG8, CLCNKA, CLIC6, CLIC2, CLCA4, CLCC1, CLCA3P, CNGA4, CLCN6, CLIC5, CLCA2, CLIC3, CATSPER4, CATSPER2, FAM26F, FAM26D, FAM26E, FXYD3, FXYD7, FXYD6P3, GABRA6, GABRG3, GABRR3, GABRB1, GABRG1, GABRP, GABRA5, GABRR1, GPR89A, GLRA3, GLRA4, GLRB, GPR89A, GRID1, GRIK3, HCN3, KCND1, KCNK4, KCNK7, KCNS1, KCNS2, KCNIP1, KCNJ15, KCNMB4, KCNK16, ITPR2, KCNH6, KCNH7, KCNH8, KCNK12, KCNMB3, KCNA6, KCNG2, KCNN1, KCNAB2, KCNIP4, KCNC4, KCNG3, KCNH4, KCNS3, KCNAB3, KCNG4, KCNA7, KCNT1, KCNJ14, KCNJ18, KCNV1, LRRC52, LRRC55, LRRC38, PANX3, PANX2, PLLP, PKD1L2, PKD2L2, PKD1L3, SLC26A1, SCN3B, SCN7A, SCNN1D, SCN2B, SCNN1B, TMC5, TMC7, TMEM38B, TMC3, TMC4, TTYH2, TTYH1

GPCRs

HTR1E, HTR5A, ADGRD1, ADGRE2, ADGRF5, ADGRG4, ADGRG7, ADGRB2, ADGRF2, ADGRF4, CHRM5, ADGRF1, ADGRG3, ADGRG5, ADGRD2, ADGRE1, ADGRE3, ADGRF3, ADGRG2, ADGRB3, ADGRA1, ADGRE4P, ADGRL3, CELSR2, GPR137, FZD10, GPR32P1, GALR3, GPR139, GPR149, GPR171, GPR174, GPR142, GPR151, GPR156, GPRC5D, GPR153, GPR33, GPR25, GPR45, GPR75, GPR88, GNRHR2, GPR150, GPR18, GPR62, GPR82, GPR87, GPR101, GPR173, GPRC5C, GPR32, GPR63, GPRC5B, GPR12, GPR135, GPR141, GPR146, GPR152, GPR157, GPR160, GPR42, GPR52, GPR143, GPR162, GPR26, GPR21, GPR61, GPR20, GPR27, GPR31, GPR34, GPR39, GPR4, GPR6, GPR78, GPR85, GPR19, GPR22, HCAR1, HCAR3, MAS1L, LPAR6, MRGPRX4, MRGPRG, MRGPRX2, MTNR1A, MRGPRE, MRGPRX3, NPBWR1, NPBWR2, NPY6R, NPY2R, NPY5R, OPN1MW2, OXGR1, P2RY10, OXER1, RRH, P2RY11, PROKR1, QRFPR, GPRC5A, RXFP3, RXFP4, S1PR4, SSTR4, SUCNR1, TAS2R31, TAS2R14, TAAR3, TAS2R10, TAS2R41, TAS2R43, TAS2R50, TAAR2, TAAR8, TAS2R19, TAS2R7, TAS2R9, TAS2R13, TAS2R20, TAS2R40, TAS2R60, TAS2R3, TAS2R4, TAS2R5, TAS2R16, TAS2R8, TAAR9, TAS2R39, TAS2R1, TAS2R30, TAS2R42, TAS2R46, TPRA1, AVPR1B, VN1R17P, VN1R3, VN1R5, VN1R1, VN1R4, VN1R2

It is expected that the priorities among the targets within these three families will change over the period of the project. The IDG Consortium is expected to transform research by revealing a number of new activities and potential drug targets amongst these understudied proteins. Moreover, it is anticipated that the IDG Consortium will enhance our understanding of on- and off-target effects by establishing functional relationships among understudied members of the commonly targeted gene families.

Thus, the overall long-term goals of the IDG Program are two-fold:

• To advance research through the development, broad dissemination, and use of community scientific resources to study human proteins for which publicly available information or active research is lacking in order to catalyze the discovery of truly novel biology, with a particular focus on understudied members of the protein kinase, ion channel, and non-olfactory GPCR families.
• To demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of illuminating the roles of understudied proteins, permitting the expansion of such approaches to a broader array of protein families beyond the three families of proteins in the IDG Program.

To accomplish these goals the IDG will be composed of awardees from at least the three initiatives described below. These awardees, in conjunction with future IDG initiative awardees, will form the nucleus of the IDG Consortium that will pursue the overall goals of the program. Additional non-IDG-funded members could be included in the IDG Consortium in the future.

• The Knowledge Management Center (KMC; RFA-RM-16-024) will aggregate knowledge from a protein-centric viewpoint across the entire human proteome, with an emphasis on the understudied non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, and ion channels that will be the focus of the experimental initiative. The KMC will also develop a knowledge portal (the IDG Portal ) that will include the aggregated data and metadata, a query interface, and deployed informatics tools along with community access to resources developed by the IDG Consortium (see below for further specifics). The main goal of the IDG Portal is to provide access to aggregated data and IDG resources for the broad scientific community.
• Data and Resource Generation Centers (DRGCs; RFA-RM-16-026) will generate and validate new knowledge and/or tools relevant to the understudied members of the protein kinase, ion channel, and non-olfactory GPCR families with the intent of broadly and rapidly disseminating knowledge and tools to the research community. As one of the essential goals of this program, NIH intends that tools and reagents generated by the IDG Consortium will be broadly available and distributed at minimal cost, and without undue intellectual property constraints, so that they can be used as widely as possible, enabling further investigation of understudied proteins by the larger scientific community.
• To assist in the dissemination of data and tools and the overall coordination of the IDG Consortium, a Resource Dissemination and Outreach Center (RDOC; RFA-RM-16-025) will also be established. The IDG RDOC will work with all IDG Consortium investigators to collect, curate, and disseminate information regarding critical tools and reagents being developed by the IDG Consortium through the IDG Portal.

Contingent on availability of funds, the NIH plans a future funding opportunity for a set of Cutting Edge Informatics Tools (CEITs) that will augment the capability of the KMC as well as the broader IDG Consortium by deploying tools to enhance the community’s ability to process, analyze, and visualize data around the understudied proteins. Awardees are expected to work together across initiatives to accomplish the overall goals of the IDG and to disseminate resources to the broad scientific community.

Under this initiative, each application must focus on the understudied members of a single protein family (protein kinases, ion channels, or non-olfactory GPCRs). The understudied members (operationally defined as those with a JS < 50, no R01s, and a PubTator score < 150) which must be proposed for study in the application, are listed above. While the exact set of proteins under study by the IDG Consortium will evolve over time, it is expected that technology platforms supported by this program will be able to explore the underlying biology of nearly all of the understudied members of one of the three families selected for study in the IDG Program in ways that will prioritize promising areas for future expanded study.

Due to the nature of particular technologies (e.g., high throughput screening, proteome-wide assessment), data and tools around additional members of the families may be collected, but the primary platforms to be used must be capable of investigating the majority of the understudied proteins and should be at a stage where they can be deployed at the necessary scale in the first year of the awards. For secondary platforms, continuing technology adaptation may be appropriate, for example, to increase the throughput of an assay or to adapt an assay to query better a particular understudied sub-family. At the IDG kick-off meeting and regular intervals thereafter, the IDG Steering Committee (SC) will re-evaluate the prioritization of understudied proteins based on emerging data, understanding of the illumination process, and advice from External Scientific Consultants.

Two important catalysts of investigator-initiated study or therapeutics discovery of genes and their encoded proteins are data supporting an association with physiology and disease and appropriate tools and technologies to foster discovery. Biological functions of a protein may be inferred and characterized based on its intrinsic properties and extrinsic connectivity. A wide array of approaches are used to deduce protein functions, including experimental studies of anatomical and subcellular localization, cellular signaling assays, as well as bioinformatics analyses utilizing gene sequence homology, protein domain structures, and functional connectivity pathways. Furthermore, the functions of a protein may be characterized by experimentally assessing the effects and phenotypes induced by dosage manipulation of gene expression, binding of small- or macro-molecule ligands, or perturbations of its cellular localization and connectivity. While modern molecular genetics techniques have advanced to the point that genome-wide characterization of gene transcription and systematic approaches to studying knockout animals can be pursued, technologies to directly interrogate the function of proteins have not often been readily applied to the unbiased study of a large number of proteins. Numerous medium- and high-throughput technology platforms are now available to study individual members of the GPCRs, ion channels, and protein kinases.

This FOA seeks to assemble three protein family-focused DRGCs (one each focusing on the understudied non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, and ion channels) that utilize an integrated set of scalable, transformative, and robust technology platforms that are ready to adapt to provide biological insights. It is expected that these platforms will be established and ready to produce results from the beginning of the program, and will not require technology development. The DRGCs will focus on generating, validating, and utilizing knowledge and/or tools that elucidate the functions of understudied proteins in cellular, animal, or other physiologically-relevant models and how manipulation of those functions influence cellular or organismal processes. Examples of such modulatory technologies are designer receptors activated by designer drugs (DREADDs), optogenetic approaches, tool compounds, and advanced gene-editing technologies simple knock-out or overexpression studies are not considered sufficiently modulatory for the long-term goals of this FOA. The initiative will support multiple high- and medium-throughput experiments on selected IDG proteins to generate novel phenotypic data and reagents in gap areas identified by the IDG Consortium. In addition to research projects linked across a theme, DRGCs may have technologies that can be applied to members of the other two IDG protein families, and future collaborations with the other DRGCs will be strongly encouraged.

The NIH intends to fund a total of three DRGCs, one for each of three protein families: A) non-olfactory GPCRs, B) protein kinases, C) ion channels.

DRGC Type A: Specific Research Objectives for a GPCR-focused DRGC

GPCRs transduce a broad array of extracellular signals from a wide variety of ligands that include protein hormones, neurotransmitters, peptides, amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acid derivatives, Ca2+, and photons. Ligand binding to GPCRs results in a conformational change that leads to activation of intracellular heterotrimeric GTP-binding proteins and receptor phosphorylation followed by a cascade of intracellular signaling events to regulate cellular functions. A key limitation to elucidating the function of understudied GPCRs is the absence of tools to modulate receptor activity that can identify the receptor’s influences on downstream cellular and physiological processes. Many of the understudied GPCRs are also orphans in that their endogenous ligand(s) are not known. Generation of such tools and knowledge, through experimental and computational approaches, is likely to identify physiologically relevant pathways for future study in relevant cell types and phenotypic readouts.

This FOA intends to support a non-olfactory GPCR-focused DRGC composed of scalable technologies to enable the investigation of understudied GPCRs by linking functional modulation of these GPCRs and their signaling to functional outcomes at the biochemical, cellular, and/or organismal level. Projects supported by this FOA will be expected to achieve all of the following goals:

• Place GPCRs into physiologically relevant signaling cascades, including upstream signals and downstream activities;
• Identify biological signaling events and pathways that are mediated by modulating the activity of the understudied GPCRs;
• Characterize cell- and tissue-specific protein expression patterns in native environments;
• Establish and validate the functional role of GPCRs in the initiation or maintenance of a phenotype by conducting appropriate cellular or animal model receptor modulation;
• Adapt innovative and enabling tools, technologies and approaches that will facilitate achieving the above goals;
• Demonstrate capability and flexibility to work on multiple GPCR classes and collaborate with investigators within and outside of the IDG Consortium;
• Computationally analyze, integrate, and visualize upstream and downstream receptor signaling and modulation data placed into the context of physiological pathways and networks through the adaptation and deployment of state of the art bio-/chem-informatics tools, in collaboration with the IDG KMC and possible future IDG CEIT awardees.
  
  

DRGC Type B: Specific Research Objectives for a protein kinase-focused DRGC

Protein kinases play essential roles in eukaryotic signaling and their deregulated activation has been associated with diseases such as human malignancies, cardiac disorders, neurodegeneration, and inflammation. To date ~30 small molecule kinase inhibitors have been approved as drugs by the FDA but are directed against only a handful of kinases, leaving the majority of the kinome untapped. Despite recent successes in the kinase field, identification and validation of driver kinases in diseases, and the emerging problem of resistance to the inhibition of key target kinases, as well as the development of kinase inhibitors with outstanding selectivity remain major challenges. One limitation in discovery of new kinase targets is a lack of knowledge of the underlying biology of the understudied members of this family. Deploying recent advances in scalable, standardized, reproducible and high-throughput technologies in proteomics and genomics, the kinase-focused DRGC will work as an interactive group with other IDG DRGCs, to illuminate understudied kinase signaling circuitries, functional activities and their modulation through comparative analyses of multiple tissue types.

This FOA intends to support a protein kinase-focused DRGC composed of scalable technologies to facilitate the increased understanding of protein kinome biology and accelerate its translation through community resources. Projects supported by this FOA will be expected to achieve all of the following goals:

• Generate kinase activation profiles and interactome data to enable deducing basic function, potential disease association, disease subtype classification, post-translational modification and signaling network information useful for further prioritization;
• Confirm/verify biological reproducibility and quantitative differences through generation of more targeted, accurate, reproducible, sensitive, quantitative and multiplex assays, and applying them to relevant biological samples such as human tissues, iPSC-derived cells, xenografts, single cells, etc.;
• Establish the functional role of kinases in the initiation or maintenance of a phenotype through conducting appropriate cellular and animal model gene editing platforms or other relevant biological means;
• Characterize and catalogue cell- and tissue-specific protein expression patterns;
• Adapt innovative and enabling tools, technologies and approaches that will facilitate achieving the above goals including technology/approach optimization, probes, antibodies, and assay reagents;
• Demonstrate capability and flexibility to work on a broad spectrum of understudied kinases and collaborate with investigators within and outside of the IDG Consortium;
• Computationally analyze, integrate, and visualize kinase-focused omics data mapped onto networks and pathways and adapt and deploy innovative bioinformatics tools to enhance aforementioned omics data management, in collaboration with the IDG KMC and possible future IDG CEITs awardees

DRGC Type C: Specific Research Objectives for an ion channel-focused DRGC

Ion channels are typically multimeric transmembrane protein complexes consisting of a central ion-conducting pore and a variable number of interacting proteins, mediating many vital functions including neuronal excitability and signaling, muscle contraction, hor mone secretion, and transepithelial ion transport. Their malfunction has been linked to a wide range of diseases that include neurological, psychiatric, cardiac, metabolic, and renal disorders. A variety of ion channel diseases (channelopathies) have been identified resulting from loss- or gain-of-function mutations in ion-conducting pore subunits and their interacting proteins. It has become increasingly clear that ion pore-interacting proteins can regulate channel properties such as gating, permeation, and trafficking to the cell surface or particular subcellular microdomains. However, with several hundreds of identified genes encoding ion channel pore and interacting subunits, ion channels remain underexploited. In particular, many ion channel complexes remain poorly characterized in composition and function, resulting in a huge knowledge gap in how ion channels are modulated in health and disease.

This FOA intends to support an ion channel-focused DRGC to elucidate compositions and functions of understudied ion channel complexes (ion-conducting pore subunits and their interacting proteins). Projects supported by this FOA will be expected to achieve all of the following goals:

• Define composition of understudied ion channel complexes by generating proteomic channel interactome data sets and conducting quantitative analysis;
• Characterize functional activities of understudied ion channels and their modulations by the channel interacting proteins and other factors;
• Characterize cell- and tissue-specific protein expression patterns in native environments;
• Adapt innovative and enabling tools, technologies and approaches that will facilitate achieving the above goals;
• Demonstrate capability and flexibility to work on a broad spectrum of understudied ion channels and collaborate with investigators within and outside of the IDG Consortium;
• Computationally analyze, integrate, and visualize proteome component interactome and channel modulation data placed into the context of physiological pathways and networks through the adaptation and deployment of state of the art bio-/chem-informatics tools, in collaboration with the IDG KMC and possible future IDG CEIT awardees.

All applicants are strongly encouraged to contact NIH program staff identified in this FOA to discuss the alignment of their proposed work with the goals of the FOA and with the IDG Program. A Technical Assistance teleconference will be held for potential applicants to this FOA and companion FOAs on December 13, 2016 at 3:30 PM, EST. NIH staff will present an overview of these FOAs, and NIH program, grants management, and review staff will be available to answer questions from prospective applicants. Details for joining this teleconference can be found here: https://commonfund.nih.gov/idg/index. The information session is open to all prospective applicants, but participation is not a prerequisite to apply.

See Section VIII. Other Information for award authorities and regulations.

NIH grants policies as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement will apply to the applications submitted and awards made in response to this FOA.

Higher Education Institutions

• Public/State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education
• Private Institutions of Higher Education

The following types of Higher Education Institutions are always encouraged to apply for NIH support as Public or Private Institutions of Higher Education:

o Hispanic-serving Institutions

o Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)

o Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs)

o Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions

o Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)

Nonprofits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education

• Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
• Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)

For-Profit Organizations

• Small Businesses
• For-Profit Organizations (Other than Small Businesses)

Governments

• State Governments
• County Governments
• City or Township Governments
• Special District Governments
• Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Federally Recognized)
• Indian/Native American Tribal Governments (Other than Federally Recognized)
• Eligible Agencies of the Federal Government Including the NIH Intramural Program
• U.S. Territory or Possession

Other

• Independent School Districts
• Public Housing Authorities/Indian Housing Authorities
• Native American Tribal Organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
• Faith-based or Community-based Organizations
• Regional Organizations

Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply.
Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed.

Applicant Organizations

Applicant organizations must complete and maintain the following registrations as described in the SF 424 (R&R) Application Guide to be eligible to apply for or receive an award. All registrations must be completed prior to the application being submitted. Registration can take 6 weeks or more, so applicants should begin the registration process as soon as possible. The NIH Policy on Late Submission of Grant Applications states that failure to complete registrations in advance of a due date is not a valid reason for a late submission.

• Dun and Bradstreet Universal Numbering System (DUNS) - All registrations require that applicants be issued a DUNS number. After obtaining a DUNS number, applicants can begin both SAM and eRA Commons registrations. The same DUNS number must be used for all registrations, as well as on the grant application.
• System for Award Management (SAM) (formerly CCR) Applicants must complete and maintain an active registration, which requires renewal at least annually. The renewal process may require as much time as the initial registration. SAM registration includes the assignment of a Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code for domestic organizations which have not already been assigned a CAGE Code.
• NATO Commercial and Government Entity (NCAGE) Code Foreign organizations must obtain an NCAGE code (in lieu of a CAGE code) in order to register in SAM.
• eRA Commons - Applicants must have an active DUNS number and SAM registration in order to complete the eRA Commons registration. Organizations can register with the eRA Commons as they are working through their SAM or Grants.gov registration. eRA Commons requires organizations to identify at least one Signing Official (SO) and at least one Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) account in order to submit an application.
• Grants.gov Applicants must have an active DUNS number and SAM registration in order to complete the Grants.gov registration.

Program Directors/Principal Investigators (PD(s)/PI(s))

All PD(s)/PI(s) must have an eRA Commons account. PD(s)/PI(s) should work with their organizational officials to either create a new account or to affiliate their existing account with the applicant organization in eRA Commons. If the PD/PI is also the organizational Signing Official, they must have two distinct eRA Commons accounts, one for each role. Obtaining an eRA Commons account can take up to 2 weeks.

Any individual(s) with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research as the Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) (PD(s)/PI(s)) is invited to work with his/her organization to develop an application for support. Individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as well as individuals with disabilities are always encouraged to apply for NIH support.

For institutions/organizations proposing multiple PDs/PIs, visit the Multiple Program Director/Principal Investigator Policy and submission details in the Senior/Key Person Profile (Expanded) Component of the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

This FOA does not require cost sharing as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Applicant organizations may submit more than one application, provided that each application is scientifically distinct.

The NIH will not accept duplicate or highly overlapping applications under review at the same time. This means that the NIH will not accept:

• A new (A0) application that is submitted before issuance of the summary statement from the review of an overlapping new (A0) or resubmission (A1) application.
• A resubmission (A1) application that is submitted before issuance of the summary statement from the review of the previous new (A0) application.
• An application that has substantial overlap with another application pending appeal of initial peer review (see NOT-OD-11-101).

This FOA is open to all investigators, including those who are not currently participating in the IDG pilot phase program. Applicants are free to apply to the companion FOAs. However, to encourage participation from a broad representation of the research community, when making funding decisions, NIH intends to consider whether an applicant will be funded as a PD/PI through other IDG FOAs and may choose to limit awards from multiple FOAs. In addition, the IDG Consortium is expected to be open to investigators beyond those funded through the IDG FOAs, as determined by the IDG Steering Committee.

Buttons to access the online ASSIST system or to download application forms are available in Part 1 of this FOA. See your administrative office for instructions if you plan to use an institutional system-to-system solution.

It is critical that applicants follow the Research (R) Instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, including Supplemental Grant Application Instructions except where instructed in this funding opportunity announcement to do otherwise. Conformance to the requirements in the Application Guide is required and strictly enforced. Applications that are out of compliance with these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review.

For information on Application Submission and Receipt, visit Frequently Asked Questions Application Guide, Electronic Submission of Grant Applications.

Although a letter of intent is not required, is not binding, and does not enter into the review of a subsequent application, the information that it contains allows IC staff to estimate the potential review workload and plan the review.

By the date listed in Part 1. Overview Information, prospective applicants are asked to submit a letter of intent that includes the following information:

• Descriptive title of proposed activity
• Name(s), address(es), and telephone number(s) of the PD(s)/PI(s)
• Names of other key personnel
• Participating institution(s)
• Number and title of this funding opportunity

The letter of intent should be sent to:

Jenna Baker, Ph.D.
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 301-827-7090
Email: jennifer.Baker@nih.gov

All page limitations described in the SF424 Application Guide and the Table of Page Limits must be followed.

The following section supplements the instructions found in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and should be used for preparing an application to this FOA.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

Effective management will require a significant commitment by the Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s). For an application proposing a single PD/PI, that PD/PI is expected to devote at least 3 person months annually to the project. If multi-PDs/PIs are proposed, then one PD/PI is expected to commit at least 2 person months annually and the other(s) should devote at least 1 person month each.

Budgets should contain 10% of the total direct costs to fund collaborations with other IDG awardees that advance the overall goals of the Consortium. All these funds are restricted and require NIH prior approval for use. If the NIH IDG Working Group, via the Steering Committee, deems such collaborations scientifically unwarranted, the 10% budget may be re-allocated to the primary project on a yearly basis. A prior approval request is required to re-allocate these funds to other studies.

Applications should include at least 4 person months of effort allocated to an informaticist with deep understanding of relevant biology that will serve as a data organizer who will ensure timely analysis, processing, and deposition of novel DRGC-generated data and work with counterparts in the IDG KMC and RDOC to maintain IDG Consortium best practices for data and tool tracking and sharing. Due to the nature of analyzing the large quantities of complex data to be generated by the DRGCs, the budget should include sufficient resources to this activity and that should be fully detailed in the Budget Justification.

The IDG Program will have regular conference calls and meetings. Applicants should request funds for 2-6 group members to attend annual meetings, Consortium-led tutorials, and biennial international open innovation meetings organized by the RDOC, as appropriate.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed, with the following additional instructions:

Specific Aims: The Specific Aims should describe the overall vision for the proposed protein family-focused DRGC and how it will meet the Specific Research Objectives stated in this FOA. It should include a general plan for collaborations within each family-focused DRGC team, as well as other components of the IDG Consortium such as the other DRGCs, IDG KMC, and IDG RDOC. Explain the critical barrier to progress in elucidating the understudied protein family that this DRGC will focus on and how the proposed Specific Aims will contribute to a solution. Explain how the proposed project will improve scientific knowledge and technical capability by providing new data, tools, and/or experimental approaches to users. Critically evaluate existing knowledge and approaches that have been or are being applied in the area and specifically describe how the proposed approach will advance the field.

Research Strategy:

Innovation: Innovation for this FOA is measured by the ability to adapt scalable technologies to the generation of data and resources around understudied non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, or ion channels, including through enhanced management strategies that result in efficient experimental workflows. Applicants should explain how the data and/or reagents to be generated represent advances in the field, with greater validation, rigor, and reproducibility than currently available tools for the selected understudied proteins that will enable their further study.

Prioritization of Understudied Proteins: Applicants should utilize the list of understudied proteins (above) to identify understudied human members of the protein family their DRGC focuses on (operationally defined as those with a JS < 50, no R01s, and a PubTator score < 150) and explain how these proteins will be initially prioritized for study. It is expected that the priorities among the targets within the three families will change over the period of the project. Any such changes will be decided by the NIH IDG Working Group (WG) in consultation with the IDG Steering Committee (SC), both defined below in Section VI Terms and Conditions. While some technology platforms may readily be used to study entire families or classes that include members beyond the understudied proteins, the technologies proposed must be appropriate to address all or a large proportion of the understudied members of a class.

Approach: The research strategy should provide a concise vision and proposed plan for the family-focused DRGC and how it will utilize technology platforms to generate tools and data and internally validate these resources. Describe the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses to be used to accomplish the Specific Aims of the project. The technologies proposed must be appropriate to address all or a large proportion of the understudied members of a family and some may be capable of covering an entire family. Due to differences in the status of knowledge, tools and available technologies around the three protein families, different levels of coverage may be appropriate. In certain cases with scientific justification, applicants to the DRGCs may propose continuing technological adaptation where existing technologies do not adequately cover some portions of the understudied families. It is expected that applicants will address issues around the throughput of their primary technologies and how they will be deployed at the necessary scale within the first year as well as the throughput of any secondary technologies that may be of lower throughput and/or need further adaptation. Applicants should provide preliminary data supporting their primary technologies' ability and readiness to address all the members of the understudied proteins in their family. When appropriate, applicants should detail how they will initially prioritize proteins within this understudied space. Additionally, applicants should describe how they will address cases where the understudied proteins have reported modulatory tools (e.g., small molecule ligands, neutralizing antibodies, etc.) to define how they will assess and potentially utilize existing tools in their overall approach.

It is anticipated that significant steps in the elucidation of the function of understudied human proteins in the DG may require the use of model organisms or model organism-derived samples to study their orthologs. The model organisms or derived samples planned for use must be justified in terms of the technologies to be employed, the information to be gained, and eventual applicability of the information to humans. Accordingly, the research plan must include validation of results in human samples to the maximum, feasible extent.

Discuss potential problems, alternative strategies, and benchmarks for success anticipated to achieve the Aims. What scientific challenges are being addressed, what approaches, methods, software, and tools will be generated, and how will the DRGC be useful? Include a concise description of the structure of the family-focused DRGC and how individual components of the DRGC, including key personnel, will interact as well as the guiding principles of the interaction. Technical feasibility for the approaches should be clearly established by preliminary results so that any risks present can be mitigated and alternative approaches discussed.

Applications for the GPCR-focused DRGC are expected to propose a combination of advanced technologies and approaches to generate high quality data and resources in a scalable manner that can be applied to the understudied non-olfactory human GPCRs. Such technologies may include, but are not limited to:

• Moderate- to high-throughput screening approaches to identify synthetic or endogenous ligands for understudied GPCRs (e.g., peptide panning approaches, metabolite screens, traditional chemical library screening) that can be used in a variety of cellular, ex vivo, and in vivo models to assess GPCR function;
• Transgenic approaches using approaches (e.g., DREADDs, optogenetics) that can elucidate the cellular or molecular roles of particular GPCRs through mimicking receptor modulation and contribute to understanding of how these proteins contribute to systems level functioning in an organism as a whole;
• Approaches to assess protein expression and subcellular localization (e.g., high throughput immunocytohistochemistry, in situ proximity labeling).
  
  

Applications for the protein kinase-focused DRGC are expected to propose scalable high throughput technologies and approaches that can be applied to the understudied human kinases identified above to generate a compendium of high quality data enabling the research community to identify lead proteins for investigator-initiated grant applications. The resulting data types for the kinase-focused DRGC encompass (but are not limited to) kinase activation profiles, multiplex assays, interactome data, post-translational modification, tissue-specific expression, signaling network information, proteogenomic integration data, and affinity reagents. Applicable technologies may include, but are not limited to:

• Proteomic discovery/profiling approaches (e.g., affinity purification/mass spectrometry (MS), multiplexed inhibitor beads (MIB)/MS technology);
• Targeted, reproducible, sensitive, and multiplex quantitative assays (e.g. immuno-MRM, PRM, RPPA technologies);
• Gene targeting/editing platforms that can elucidate the cellular or molecular roles of particular kinases, and contribute to understanding of how these proteins contribute to systems level functioning in an organism as a whole (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9, knock out, RNAi, antibody technologies);
• Approaches to assess protein expression and subcellular localization (e.g., high throughput immunocytohistochemistry, in situ proximity labeling).

Applications for the ion channel-focused DRGC are expected to propose a combination of advanced technologies and approaches to generate high quality data and resources in a scalable manner that can be applied to ion channel complexes encompassing much of the understudied human ion channel components identified above. Such technologies may include but are not limited to:

• Proteomics approaches to characterize ion channel composition (e.g., affinity purification/mass spectrometry, in situ proximity labeling, in situ cross-linking, two-hybrid assays);
• Medium-to-high throughput functional assays to further understand ion channel properties and to identify synthetic and endogenous modulators (e.g., FLIPR ion flux assay, voltage indicator-based assay, automated electrophysiology);
• Transgenic approaches using advanced cell-specific gene targeting and editing methods (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9, optogenetics);
• Approaches to assess protein expression and subcellular localization (e.g., high throughput immunocytohistochemistry, in situ proximity labeling);
• Rigorous validation of existing or IDG-generated tools that enhance the study of understudied ion channels (e.g., antibodies, reagents, synthetic or natural modulators).

Data Analysis and Validation: Applications should concisely and adequately describe the bio-/chem-informatics component(s) of the DRGC to demonstrate sufficient capacity and expertise to process, analyze, and deposit data into external repositories; it is not the function of the IDG KMC to process, analyze, or deposit data generated by the DRGCs. However, it is expected that the KMC and DRGCs will form synergistic collaborations to develop next generation computational analysis, visualization, and deposition tools based on emerging needs in the field. The robustness and reproducibility of preliminary results should be described along with independent validation or replication of results if available. Explain the importance of the proposed tool/data validation strategy in the context of the development of new information gathered around understudied proteins using high-throughput datasets generated with the proposed technology platforms. Applicants should address in general terms how they will deal with cases in which understudied proteins have reported modulatory tools by describing how they will assess and potentially utilize existing tools in their overall validation approach. All projects should propose a detailed plan for the biological validation of the data and tools generated and explain how the proposed validation strategy will convincingly establish the biological relevance of previously understudied proteins, so that technologies and tools can be adopted with confidence by the research community.

Collaborations with other DRGCs: Applicants should briefly and succinctly describe how their overall approach may interface scientifically with the study of understudied members of the other two protein families. This may include, but is not limited to, how technology platforms could be applied across families, how data analysis could be linked to better enhance elucidation of downstream signaling pathways, or how protein interaction and localization alters cross-family protein function. Applicants should indicate their willingness to explore synergistic collaborations with the other DRGCs or collaborations with other IDG awardees once the IDG Consortium is formed and should follow specific instructions in the Budget (see above) on restricting 10% of direct costs for collaborative studies.

Project Deliverables, Milestones, Decision Tree, Endpoints, and Timeline: A timeline including milestones is required for all studies. Milestones are intermediate steps towards the completion of concrete goals that inform decision points in the project and must include clear and quantitative criteria for success. Milestones for data and reagent sharing must be included. Yearly quantitative milestones are required in order to provide clear indicators of a project's continued success or emergent difficulties and will be used to evaluate the application not only in peer review but also in consideration of the awarded project for funding of non-competing award years. All applications should include a 1st year milestone of demonstrating readiness of their primary technologies at a scale necessary to study all understudied members of their protein family over the course of the award. All applications should contain a decision tree that details when and under what conditions various approaches will be taken and techniques applied and how milestones will be re-evaluated on a yearly basis. This decision tree should include criteria that define when a protein has reached the endpoint of study for the purposes of the IDG. These items must be provided in a separate heading at the end of the Approach section.

Resource Sharing Plan: Individuals are required to comply with the instructions for the Resource Sharing Plans as provided in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide, with the following modification:

• All applications, regardless of the amount of direct costs requested for any one year, should include a Resource Sharing Plan.
• Applicants should indicate their willingness to abide by all data deposition, quality control metrics, standardization, metadata requirements, data and software release, and public copyright license policies developed by the IDG SC and approved by NIH staff. A primary goal of the IDG Program is to facilitate discoveries of the broad scientific community for the improvement of public health. Restrictive licensing and sharing practices for IDG-generated data, tools, and resources could substantially diminish their value and public benefit. Accordingly, awardees should manage data, resources, protocols, tools, and software in a way that achieves this goal. Sharing practices that would prevent or block access to or use of IDG program data, tools, and resources for research purposes will be considered to be hindering the goals of the IDG Program. The development of policies, methods, and standards for such sharing is critically important. The NIH expects that the awardees, through the IDG SC, will develop such policies, methods, and standards in concert with the NIH. These policies, methods, and standards will remain consistent with NIH-wide policies on data and resource sharing.
• Specific Plan for Data Sharing: Consistent with achieving the goals of this program, the NIH expects that information such as collected data, technical protocols, and any other metadata collected under this FOA is to be deposited as appropriate into existing, publically available data repositories that are easily accessible, and in machine readable format. Where appropriate, applicants should identify such repositories and plans for deposition. For datatypes that lack suitable public repositories, applicants should indicate their willingness to identify an appropriate alternative solution that is consistent with achieving the goals of the program. Data should also be made available as appropriate via the IDG Portal that will serve as the central access point for information regarding data, critical tools, and reagents being developed by the IDG Consortium. If applicable, applicants must abide by the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy (https://gds.nih.gov/) and should indicate their agreement to it in the data sharing plan.
• Specific Plan for Protocol, Tool, and Reagent Sharing: As one of the primary goals of this program is to advance research through development, establishment, broad dissemination and use of community resources across the research community, NIH intends that protocols, tools, and reagents generated by the IDG Consortium be broadly available and distributed at minimal cost, and without undue intellectual property constraints, so that they can be as widely used as possible, thus enabling downstream investigations of understudied proteins by the larger scientific community. For all DRGC applications and where otherwise applicable, the applicant should discuss plans for sharing and distribution of non-data resources that will be generated by the proposed project, including models, protocols, biomaterials, and reagents. The IDG RDOC will work with all IDG Consortium investigators to collect, curate, and disseminate information regarding tools and reagents being developed by the IDG Consortium to be disseminated through the IDG Portal and other sources as appropriate.
• Specific Plan for Sharing Software: A software dissemination plan, with appropriate timelines, is expected in applications that are developing software. There is no prescribed single license for software produced in this project; however, reviewers will be asked to evaluate the software sharing and dissemination plan based on its likely impact. A dissemination plan guided by the following principles is thought to promote the largest impact:
• The software should be freely available to biomedical researchers and educators in the non-profit sector, such as institutions of education, research institutions, and government laboratories.
• The terms should also permit the dissemination and commercialization of enhanced or customized versions of the software, or incorporation of the software or pieces of it into other software packages.
• To preserve utility to the community, the software should be transferable such that another individual or team can continue development in the event that the original investigators are unwilling or unable to do so.
• The terms of software availability should include the ability of researchers outside the Center and its collaborating projects to modify the source code and to share modifications with other colleagues as well as with the Center. An applicant should take responsibility for creating the original and subsequent official versions of a piece of software.
• Applicants are asked to propose a plan to manage and disseminate the improvements or customizations of their tools and resources by others. This proposal may include a plan to incorporate the enhancements into the official core software, may involve the creation of an infrastructure for plug-ins, or may describe some other solution.
• Any software dissemination plans represent a commitment by the institution (and its subcontractors as applicable) to support and abide by the plan.
  
  
• To help ensure that the IDG KMC and RDOC can provide comprehensive data and tool sets for each understudied IDG protein, Consortium members will be expected to share complete data and tool sets for the studied proteins, including, as appropriate, any preliminary data and tools from the DRGC application. Sharing preliminary data used in the application will enhance the study of understudied proteins by the larger scientific community and will be consistent with achieving the goals of the program. Applicants should describe which preliminary data would be shared and how.
• Applicants should also be familiar with the NIH statements regarding intellectual property of resources developed with Federal funds (NIH Research Tools Policy (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/intell-property_64FR72090.pdf) and other related NIH sharing policies at http://sharing.nih.gov).
• Prior to funding, NIH Program Staff may negotiate modifications to the Sharing Plan with the applicant.

Appendix:

Do not use the Appendix to circumvent page limits. Follow all instructions for the Appendix as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

When conducting clinical research, follow all instructions for completing PHS Inclusion Enrollment Report as described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide must be followed.

See Part 1. Section III.1 for information regarding the requirement for obtaining a unique entity identifier and for completing and maintaining active registrations in System for Award Management (SAM), NATO Commercial and Government Entity (NCAGE) Code (if applicable), eRA Commons, and Grants.gov

Part I. Overview Information contains information about Key Dates and times. Applicants are encouraged to submit applications before the due date to ensure they have time to make any application corrections that might be necessary for successful submission. When a submission date falls on a weekend or Federal holiday, the application deadline is automatically extended to the next business day.

Organizations must submit applications to Grants.gov (the online portal to find and apply for grants across all Federal agencies). Applicants must then complete the submission process by tracking the status of the application in the eRA Commons, NIH’s electronic system for grants administration. NIH and Grants.gov systems check the application against many of the application instructions upon submission. Errors must be corrected and a changed/corrected application must be submitted to Grants.gov on or before the application due date and time. If a Changed/Corrected application is submitted after the deadline, the application will be considered late. Applications that miss the due date and time are subjected to the NIH Policy on Late Application Submission.

Applicants are responsible for viewing their application before the due date in the eRA Commons to ensure accurate and successful submission.

Information on the submission process and a definition of on-time submission are provided in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

This initiative is not subject to intergovernmental review.

All NIH awards are subject to the terms and conditions, cost principles, and other considerations described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Pre-award costs are allowable only as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Applications must be submitted electronically following the instructions described in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide. Paper applications will not be accepted.

Applicants must complete all required registrations before the application due date. Section III. Eligibility Information contains information about registration.

For assistance with your electronic application or for more information on the electronic submission process, visit Applying Electronically. If you encounter a system issue beyond your control that threatens your ability to complete the submission process on-time, you must follow the Guidelines for Applicants Experiencing System Issues. For assistance with application submission, contact the Application Submission Contacts in Section VII.

Important reminders:

All PD(s)/PI(s) must include their eRA Commons ID in the Credential field of the Senior/Key Person Profile Component of the SF424(R&R) Application Package. Failure to register in the Commons and to include a valid PD/PI Commons ID in the credential field will prevent the successful submission of an electronic application to NIH. See Section III of this FOA for information on registration requirements.

The applicant organization must ensure that the DUNS number it provides on the application is the same number used in the organization’s profile in the eRA Commons and for the System for Award Management. Additional information may be found in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide.

See more tips for avoiding common errors.

Upon receipt, applications will be evaluated for completeness and compliance with application instructions by the Center for Scientific Review and responsiveness by components of participating organizations, NIH. Applications that are incomplete, non-compliant and/or nonresponsive will not be reviewed.

The requests by NIH intramural scientists will be limited to the incremental costs required for participation. As such, these requests will not include any salary and related fringe benefits for career, career conditional or other Federal employees (civilian or uniformed service) with permanent appointments under existing position ceilings or any costs related to administrative or facilities support (equivalent to Facilities and Administrative or F&A costs). These costs may include salary for staff to be specifically hired under a temporary appointment for the project, consultant costs, equipment, supplies, travel, and other items typically listed under Other Expenses. Applicants should indicate the number of person-months devoted to the project, even if no funds are requested for salary and fringe benefits.

If selected, appropriate funding will be provided by the NIH Intramural Program. NIH intramural scientists will participate in this program as PDs/PIs in accord with the Terms and Conditions provided in this FOA. Intellectual property will be managed in accord with established policy of the NIH in compliance with Executive Order 10096, as amended, 45 CFR Part 7; patent rights for inventions developed in NIH facilities are NIH property unless NIH waives its rights.

Should an extramural application include the collaboration with an intramural scientist, no funds for the support of the intramural scientist may be requested in the application. The intramural scientist may submit a separate request for intramural funding as described above.

Applicants are required to follow the instructions for post-submission materials, as described in the policy.

Only the review criteria described below will be considered in the review process. As part of the NIH mission, all applications submitted to the NIH in support of biomedical and behavioral research are evaluated for scientific and technical merit through the NIH peer review system.

Reviewers will provide an overall impact score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood for the project to exert a sustained, powerful influence on the research field(s) involved, in consideration of the following review criteria and additional review criteria (as applicable for the project proposed).

Reviewers will consider each of the review criteria below in the determination of scientific merit, and give a separate score for each. An application does not need to be strong in all categories to be judged likely to have major scientific impact. For example, a project that by its nature is not innovative may be essential to advance a field.

Does the proposed Center address the needs of the research resource that it will create? Is the scope of activities proposed for the Center appropriate to meet those needs? Will successful completion of the aims bring unique advantages or capabilities to the research resource?

Specific to this FOA: Will the technology platforms generate high quality data, key knowledge and/or transformative tools to enable the study of critical aspects of the understudied non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, or ion channels? If the aims of the project are achieved, how will scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice be improved? Will the project address critical barriers to understanding the role of understudied proteins in fundamental physiology, in disease processes, and/or as novel therapeutic targets? Are an appropriate number of understudied non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, or ion channels proposed for study during the 6-year period based on the current status of knowledge around each family and the throughput of the technology platforms, analytical and modeling tools, and validation approaches? Is the overall schema used to prioritize study of the understudied proteins throughout the course of the 6-year award well developed and appropriate?

Are the PD(s)/PI(s) and other personnel well suited to their roles in the Center? Do they have appropriate experience and training, and have they demonstrated experience and an ongoing record of accomplishments in managing similar research? Do the investigators demonstrate significant experience with coordinating collaborative basic research? If the Center is multi-PD/PI, do the investigators have complementary and integrated expertise and skills; are their leadership approach, plans for conflict resolution, and organizational structure appropriate for the Center? Does the applicant have experience overseeing selection and management of subawards, if needed?

Specific to this FOA: Does the project team have appropriate experience with utilizing the proposed technology platforms and related analytical and modeling tools to generate novel data and/or reagents around the understudied proteins during the proposed funding period? Does the project team have a track record of disseminating novel tools and techniques broadly? Is the project team committed to the collaborative approach embodied in the cooperative agreement mechanism?

Are the concepts, strategies, or instrumentation novel to one type of research program or applicable in a broad sense? Is a refinement, improvement, or new application of scalable technologies, management strategies or instrumentation proposed?

Specific to this FOA: Will novel data and/or reagents for understudied members of the non-olfactory GRPCRs, protein kinases, or ion channels be elucidated in a highly effective way via the proposed technology platform? Will the project deliver new or significantly more precise data and/or reagents to enable future studies to potentially change our understanding of the currently understudied proteins?

Are the overall strategy, operational plan, and organizational structure well-reasoned and appropriate to accomplish the goals of the research resource the Center will create? Will the investigators promote strategies to ensure a robust and unbiased scientific approach across the consortium, as appropriate for the work proposed? Are potential problems, alternative strategies, and benchmarks for success presented? If the resource is in the early stages of operation, does the proposed strategy adequately establish feasibility and manage the risks associated with the activities of the resource? Are an appropriate plan for work-flow and a well-established timeline proposed? Have the investigators presented adequate plans to ensure consideration of relevant biological variables, such as sex, for studies of vertebrate animals or human subjects?

Specific to this FOA: Are the technology platforms, analytical and modeling tools, and validation approaches well-integrated, and appropriate to the aims of the project? Do they provide sensitivity, selectivity, scalability, rigor, and reproducibility in analyses of protein functions in relevant cellular models, complex biological tissues, living organisms, or another physiologically relevant system that ultimately inform human proteins? Do the technology platforms have significant advantages in performance and throughput over other existing platforms? Are the proposed primary technology platforms sufficiently validated to begin producing data and/or reagents in their first year at the necessary scale to accomplish the goals of the DRGC during its 6-year period? Are the bio-/chem-informatics approaches adequate to support analysis, visualization, and deposition of collected data? Will the proposed approaches or concepts solve current technical limitations or gaps in knowledge around the understudied proteins in creative ways? Will the proposed data and/or reagents to be produced have the potential to be used for wide-spread study of the understudied human GPCRs, protein kinases, or ion channels by the broad scientific community? Are appropriate, evaluative, and quantitative milestones provided with clear metrics? How well do the proposed milestones align with the overall goal of the IDG to produce, validate, and make publically available data and/or tools on all understudied GPCRs, proteins kinases, or ion channels?

Will the institutional environment in which the Center will operate contribute to the probability of success in facilitating the research resource it creates? Are the institutional support, equipment and other physical resources available to the investigators adequate for the Center proposed? Will the Center benefit from unique features of the institutional environment, infrastructure, or personnel? Are resources available within the scientific environment to support electronic information handling?

As applicable for the project proposed, reviewers will evaluate the following additional items while determining scientific and technical merit, and in providing an overall impact score, but will not give separate scores for these items.

For research that involves human subjects but does not involve one of the six categories of research that are exempt under 45 CFR Part 46, the committee will evaluate the justification for involvement of human subjects and the proposed protections from research risk relating to their participation according to the following five review criteria: 1) risk to subjects, 2) adequacy of protection against risks, 3) potential benefits to the subjects and others, 4) importance of the knowledge to be gained, and 5) data and safety monitoring for clinical trials.

For research that involves human subjects and meets the criteria for one or more of the six categories of research that are exempt under 45 CFR Part 46, the committee will evaluate: 1) the justification for the exemption, 2) human subjects involvement and characteristics, and 3) sources of materials. For additional information on review of the Human Subjects section, please refer to the Guidelines for the Review of Human Subjects.

When the proposed project involves human subjects and/or NIH-defined clinical research, the committee will evaluate the proposed plans for the inclusion (or exclusion) of individuals on the basis of sex/gender, race, and ethnicity, as well as the inclusion (or exclusion) of children to determine if it is justified in terms of the scientific goals and research strategy proposed. For additional information on review of the Inclusion section, please refer to the Guidelines for the Review of Inclusion in Clinical Research.

The committee will evaluate the involvement of live vertebrate animals as part of the scientific assessment according to the following criteria: (1) description of proposed procedures involving animals, including species, strains, ages, sex, and total number to be used; (2) justifications for the use of animals versus alternative models and for the appropriateness of the species proposed; (3) interventions to minimize discomfort, distress, pain and injury; and (4) justification for euthanasia method if NOT consistent with the AVMA Guidelines for the Euthanasia of Animals. Reviewers will assess the use of chimpanzees as they would any other application proposing the use of vertebrate animals. For additional information on review of the Vertebrate Animals section, please refer to the Worksheet for Review of the Vertebrate Animal Section.

Reviewers will assess whether materials or procedures proposed are potentially hazardous to research personnel and/or the environment, and if needed, determine whether adequate protection is proposed.

Not Applicable

Not Applicable

Not Applicable

As applicable for the project proposed, reviewers will consider each of the following items, but will not give scores for these items, and should not consider them in providing an overall impact score.

Not Applicable

Reviewers will assess the information provided in this section of the application, including 1) the Select Agent(s) to be used in the proposed research, 2) the registration status of all entities where Select Agent(s) will be used, 3) the procedures that will be used to monitor possession use and transfer of Select Agent(s), and 4) plans for appropriate biosafety, biocontainment, and security of the Select Agent(s).

Reviewers will comment on whether the following Resource Sharing Plans, or the rationale for not sharing the following types of resources, are reasonable: (1) Data Sharing Plan; (2) Sharing Model Organisms; and (3) Genomic Data Sharing Plan (GDS).

For consortia involving key biological and/or chemical resources, reviewers will comment on the brief plans proposed for identifying and ensuring the validity of those resources.

Reviewers will consider whether the budget and the requested period of support are fully justified and reasonable in relation to the proposed research.

Applications will be evaluated for scientific and technical merit by (an) appropriate Scientific Review Group(s) convened by the Center for Scientific Review, in accordance with NIH peer review policy and procedures, using the stated review criteria. Assignment to a Scientific Review Group will be shown in the eRA Commons.

As part of the scientific peer review, all applications:

• May undergo a selection process in which only those applications deemed to have the highest scientific and technical merit (generally the top half of applications under review) will be discussed and assigned an overall impact score.
• Will receive a written critique.

Appeals of initial peer review will not be accepted for applications submitted in response to this FOA.

Applications will be assigned on the basis of established PHS referral guidelines to the appropriate NIH Institute or Center. Applications will compete for available funds with all other recommended applications submitted in response to this FOA. Following initial peer review, recommended applications will receive a second level of review by the The National Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases Advisory Council. The following will be considered in making funding decisions:

• Scientific and technical merit of the proposed project as determined by scientific peer review.
• Availability of funds.
• Relevance of the proposed project to program priorities.
• Evidence that the applicant and investigators are committed to policies as established by the SC including with regard to confidentiality, sharing of information and resources, and cooperative interaction.
• Evidence of previous productive, cooperative, collaborative interaction.
• Evidence that the project will contribute to the diversity of technical and intellectual approaches amongst the DRGCs and across the IDG Consortium.

After the peer review of the application is completed, the PD/PI will be able to access his or her Summary Statement (written critique) via the eRA Commons. Refer to Part 1 for dates for peer review, advisory council review, and earliest start date.

Information regarding the disposition of applications is available in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

If the application is under consideration for funding, NIH will request "just-in-time" information from the applicant as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

A formal notification in the form of a Notice of Award (NoA) will be provided to the applicant organization for successful applications. The NoA signed by the grants management officer is the authorizing document and will be sent via email to the grantee’s business official.

Awardees must comply with any funding restrictions described in Section IV.5. Funding Restrictions. Selection of an application for award is not an authorization to begin performance. Any costs incurred before receipt of the NoA are at the recipient's risk. These costs may be reimbursed only to the extent considered allowable pre-award costs.

Any application awarded in response to this FOA will be subject to terms and conditions found on the Award Conditions and Information for NIH Grants website. This includes any recent legislation and policy applicable to awards that is highlighted on this website.

This award is excluded from automatic carryover. All carryover actions require IC prior approval.

The final budget period of this award may not be automatically extended. All extension, including the first, require IC prior approval.

This award is excluded from the Streamlined Noncompeting Award Process (SNAP).

All awards will be incrementally funded for a project period up to 6 years multi-year funded grants will not be awarded under the FOA.

All NIH grant and cooperative agreement awards include the NIH Grants Policy Statement as part of the NoA. For these terms of award, see the NIH Grants Policy Statement Part II: Terms and Conditions of NIH Grant Awards, Subpart A: General and Part II: Terms and Conditions of NIH Grant Awards, Subpart B: Terms and Conditions for Specific Types of Grants, Grantees, and Activities. More information is provided at Award Conditions and Information for NIH Grants.

Recipients of federal financial assistance (FFA) from HHS must administer their programs in compliance with federal civil rights law. This means that recipients of HHS funds must ensure equal access to their programs without regard to a person’s race, color, national origin, disability, age and, in some circumstances, sex and religion. This includes ensuring your programs are accessible to persons with limited English proficiency. HHS recognizes that research projects are often limited in scope for many reasons that are nondiscriminatory, such as the principal investigator’s scientific interest, funding limitations, recruitment requirements, and other considerations. Thus, criteria in research protocols that target or exclude certain populations are warranted where nondiscriminatory justifications establish that such criteria are appropriate with respect to the health or safety of the subjects, the scientific study design, or the purpose of the research.

For additional guidance regarding how the provisions apply to NIH grant programs, please contact the Scientific/Research Contact that is identified in Section VII under Agency Contacts of this FOA. HHS provides general guidance to recipients of FFA on meeting their legal obligation to take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to their programs by persons with limited English proficiency. Please see http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/civilrights/resources/laws/revisedlep.html. The HHS Office for Civil Rights also provides guidance on complying with civil rights laws enforced by HHS. Please see http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/civilrights/understanding/section1557/index.html; and http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/civilrights/understanding/index.html. Recipients of FFA also have specific legal obligations for serving qualified individuals with disabilities. Please see http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/civilrights/understanding/disability/index.html. Please contact the HHS Office for Civil Rights for more information about obligations and prohibitions under federal civil rights laws at http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/office/about/rgn-hqaddresses.html or call 1-800-368-1019 or TDD 1-800-537-7697. Also note it is an HHS Departmental goal to ensure access to quality, culturally competent care, including long-term services and supports, for vulnerable populations. For further guidance on providing culturally and linguistically appropriate services, recipients should review the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care at http://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=2&lvlid=53.

In accordance with the statutory provisions contained in Section 872 of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2009 (Public Law 110-417), NIH awards will be subject to the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) requirements. FAPIIS requires Federal award making officials to review and consider information about an applicant in the designated integrity and performance system (currently FAPIIS) prior to making an award. An applicant, at its option, may review information in the designated integrity and performance systems accessible through FAPIIS and comment on any information about itself that a Federal agency previously entered and is currently in FAPIIS. The Federal awarding agency will consider any comments by the applicant, in addition to other information in FAPIIS, in making a judgement about the applicant’s integrity, business ethics, and record of performance under Federal awards when completing the review of risk posed by applicants as described in 45 CFR Part 75.205 Federal awarding agency review of risk posed by applicants. This provision will apply to all NIH grants and cooperative agreements except fellowships.

Cooperative Agreement Terms and Conditions of Award

The following special terms of award are in addition to, and not in lieu of, otherwise applicable U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) administrative guidelines, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) grant administration regulations at 45 CFR Parts 74 and 92 (Part 92 is applicable when State and local Governments are eligible to apply), and other HHS, PHS, and NIH grant administration policies.

The administrative and funding instrument used for this program will be the cooperative agreement, an "assistance" mechanism (rather than an "acquisition" mechanism), in which substantial NIH programmatic involvement with the awardees is anticipated during the performance of the activities. Under the cooperative agreement, the NIH purpose is to support and stimulate the recipients' activities by involvement in and otherwise working jointly with the award recipients in a partnership role; it is not to assume direction, prime responsibility, or a dominant role in the activities. Consistent with this concept, the dominant role and prime responsibility resides with the awardees for the project as a whole, although specific tasks and activities may be shared among the awardees and the NIH as defined below.

Definitions

NIH IDG Working Group (WG): Consists of NIH programmatic staff from multiple Institutes and Centers of the NIH. This group will be primarily responsible for the stewardship of the IDG Program.

Steering Committee (SC): The SC will provide coordination activities for the IDG Program. The SC will include PDs/PIs of each of the awards and NIH IDG WG members. The SC will be chaired by two PD/PIs that are nominated by the SC and approved by the NIH. The SC will establish subcommittees to oversee the development and implementation of consortium policies including data release. The number of NIH votes may not exceed one third of the total number of votes on the SC. The number of votes from a multiple PI award will be one. Votes will inform recommendations to the NIH.

External Scientific Consultants (ESCs): The NIH IDG WG will recruit outside experts (non-awardees) of relevance to the IDG Program to provide advice to NIH. The NIH IDG WG may solicit from the ESCs input on progress made by individual awardee, progress made towards the overall goals of the IDG Program, and any changes in scope or governance that might help the make the output of the IDG Program more effective and useful to the biomedical community.

IDG Consortium: The IDG Consortium will be made up of IDG awardees, the NIH IDG WG and other scientists and groups the SC agrees to include within the Consortium. The Consortium structure is meant to enable the overall goals of the IDG Program.

The PD(s)/PI(s) will have the primary responsibility for:

• Determining research approaches, designing protocols, and setting project milestones.
• Conducting the scientific research in the project, reporting progress and milestones or objectives to NIH staff, reporting results to the scientific community, and disseminating approaches, methods, and tools broadly.
• Working with the RDOC and other awardees to maximize impact of the IDG Program and meet program goals and objectives.
• Agreeing to the governance of the IDG Consortium through the SC and the NIH IDG WG, including accepting approved recommendations from the ESCs.
• Actively participating in the IDG SC, including attending both in-person and teleconference meetings, and participating in collaborative activities and subcommittees. At least one in-person SC meeting will be held per year, for which IDG awardees will pay the travel for their attending members.
• Updating goals and milestones at the time of award and providing summaries of progress toward those goals at least yearly, as requested by NIH. The milestones will be reviewed annually (and at other times, if necessary), and new milestones will be negotiated, as needed by working with the NIH IDG WG and Project Scientists as appropriate.
• Ensuring that data are deposited in a timely manner in the appropriate public databases as agreed upon by the IDG SC and approved by the NIH IDG WG. Ensuring that software and other tools and resources developed as part of this project are made publicly available according to IDG policies, and that results of the project are published in a timely manner.
• Agreeing to abide by any policies -- including those regarding intellectual property, data and software release, publication of IDG Consortium papers, quality control metrics, standardization, metadata requirements, and public copyright licensing -- that are recommended by the IDG SC and approved by the NIH IDG WG, as well as applicable NIH policies, laws, and regulations.
• Being prepared for annual administrative site visits by NIH staff.
• Agreeing to participate in the collaborative activities of the Consortium, and agreeing not to disclose confidential information obtained from other members of the IDG Consortium.
• Awardees will retain custody of and have primary rights to the data and software developed under these awards, subject to Government rights of access consistent with current DHHS, PHS, and NIH policies.

NIH staff has substantial programmatic involvement that is above and beyond the normal stewardship role in awards, as described below:

NIH Program Officer

• A NIH Program Officer (PO) will provide the standard programmatic oversight and stewardship of the projects, including review of pre-award and award documents/requirements, review of progress reports and budgets, and any other programmatic issues that may arise.
• Has the option to recommend, following consultation with the NIH IDG WG, the withholding or reduction of support from any project that substantially fails to achieve its goals according to the milestones agreed to at the time of the award. NIH reserves the right to withhold funding or curtail an award in the event of: (a) Substantive changes in the project, or failure to make sufficient progress toward the project milestones, including timely pre-publication deposition of data or reagents in accordance with approved Sharing Plans; or (b) Ethical or conflict of interest issues.

NIH Project Scientists

• One or more NIH Program Staff will serve as Project Scientists (PSs), for each IDG award and, as appropriate, to oversee collaborative projects amongst IDG awardees and/or other Consortium members. The PS will serve as the scientific representative of the NIH to the investigators in accordance with policies and procedures of the cooperative agreement mechanism. If there is more than one PS, one of them will be designated as the Lead PS. The PSs will provide substantial NIH scientific programmatic involvement with the awardee that is anticipated during the performance of the activities supported by this Cooperative Agreement, including review of milestones.
• The NIH IDG WG will provide final assessment, review, and approval of IDG project milestones and any renegotiation.

Other NIH Program Staff

• May serve on sub-committees of the IDG SC, as needed. The staff will assist the IDG SC in developing operating guidelines and consistent policies for dealing with situations that require coordinated actions.
• Will help the IDG SC members to coordinate the group process of exchanging information about research approaches and protocol designs and of developing additional IDG policies.
• Will serve as liaisons between the awardees and the ESCs, the Office of Strategic Coordination (Common Fund), and the NIH Institute and Center Advisory Councils.
• Will review and approve, in consultation with the ESCs (as needed), recommendations and plans provided by the IDG SC for collaborative activities amongst IDG awardees or outside groups.

Areas of Joint Responsibility include:

Close interaction among the participating investigators will be required, as well as significant involvement from the NIH, to develop the IDG Implementation Phase. The awardees, the PSs, and other designated NIH Staff will participate in the annual in-person SC meeting and scheduled conference calls and share information on data resources, methodologies, analytical tools, as well as data and preliminary results. PDs/PIs, key co-investigators and pre- and post-doctoral trainees, especially those who are members of under-represented minority groups or those from different but related disciplines, are eligible to attend these meetings. ESCs will attend the annual in person meetings. Other government staff may attend the IDG SC meetings.

The IDG SC will serve as the main scientific body of the IDG, with the following roles:

• The SC will be responsible for coordinating the activities of the IDG projects and is the committee through which the NIH IDG WG formally interacts with the IDG investigators. SC membership will include the PI(s) of each Project, (limited to one vote for a Project with multiple PIs) and NIH staff appointed by the NIH IDG WG (voting limited to one third of total SC votes). The IDG SC Chair(s) will be appointed by the NIH and drawn from the individual project PIs. The IDG SC may add additional, non-voting, members, as needed.
• The SC will develop a plan to generate, promote, and maintain a name awareness of the IDG Program and the IDG Consortium, including making decisions on names for outward-facing components of IDG Consortium efforts such as, but not limited to, the IDG Portal.
• The SC may choose to open Consortium membership to collaborators not funded through the IDG Program, provided that such members agree to abide by policies enacted by the SC. The SC may generate additional conditions that apply to non-awardee members of the Consortium.
• The IDG SC may set up subcommittees as needed to address particular issues. These subcommittees will include representatives from the IDG and the NIH and possibly other experts. The IDG SC will have the overall responsibility of assessing and prioritizing the progress of the various subcommittees. It is anticipated that multiple subcommittees may need to be formed, for example, to address topics such as:
• Data and Reagent Deposition and Sharing
• Quality Control and Validation
• Publications and Outreach
• Under direction of the SC, NIH staff and each awardee will be responsible for outreach. Outreach includes advertising IDG resources (including the KMC, Consortium-generated data and material resources) to potential users in both the public and private sectors. Outreach will include providing letters of support in applications proposing to use IDG-generated resources and applications proposing illumination of ion channels, non-olfactory GPCRs, and protein kinases that have been identified by IDG as understudied.

External Scientific Consultants (ESCs):

• The ESCs will provide input and advice to the NIH IDG WG. This could include reviewing and evaluating the progress of the entire IDG Program or individual awardees as well as recommending changes in priorities for the IDG Program based on scientific advances within and outside of the IDG Consortium. The ESCs will be senior, scientific experts who are not directly involved in the activities of the IDG Program. NIH will appoint the ESCs. The NIH IDG WG, and other NIH staff may attend executive meetings with the ESCs.
• The ESCs will meet at least once a year in conjunction with a meeting of the IDG Consortium. The ESCs may also meet by phone or web at others times of the year, as needed.
• Annually, the ESCs will provide individual assessments to the NIH of the progress of the IDG Consortium and will present recommendations regarding any changes in the IDG Program as necessary. The assessments and recommendations will be provided through the IDG WG to the Director of the Office of Strategic Coordination, NIH.

Dispute Resolution:

Any disagreements that may arise in scientific or programmatic matters (within the scope of the award) between award recipients and the NIH may be brought to Dispute Resolution. A Dispute Resolution Panel will be convened. The panel will have three members: a designee of the SC chosen without NIH staff voting, one NIH designee, and a third designee with expertise in the relevant area who is chosen by the other two; in the case of individual disagreement, the first member may be chosen by the individual awardee. This special dispute resolution procedure does not alter the awardee's right to appeal an adverse action that is otherwise appealable in accordance with PHS regulation 42 CFR Part 50, Subpart D and DHHS regulation 45 CFR Part 16.

When multiple years are involved, awardees will be required to submit the Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) annually and financial statements as required in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

A final progress report, invention statement, and the expenditure data portion of the Federal Financial Report are required for closeout of an award, as described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Transparency Act), includes a requirement for awardees of Federal grants to report information about first-tier subawards and executive compensation under Federal assistance awards issued in FY2011 or later. All awardees of applicable NIH grants and cooperative agreements are required to report to the Federal Subaward Reporting System (FSRS) available at www.fsrs.gov on all subawards over $25,000. See the NIH Grants Policy Statement for additional information on this reporting requirement.

In accordance with the regulatory requirements provided at 45 CFR 75.113 and Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75, recipients that have currently active Federal grants, cooperative agreements, and procurement contracts from all Federal awarding agencies with a cumulative total value greater than $10,000,000 for any period of time during the period of performance of a Federal award, must report and maintain the currency of information reported in the System for Award Management (SAM) about civil, criminal, and administrative proceedings in connection with the award or performance of a Federal award that reached final disposition within the most recent five-year period. The recipient must also make semiannual disclosures regarding such proceedings. Proceedings information will be made publicly available in the designated integrity and performance system (currently FAPIIS). This is a statutory requirement under section 872 of Public Law 110-417, as amended (41 U.S.C. 2313). As required by section 3010 of Public Law 111-212, all information posted in the designated integrity and performance system on or after April 15, 2011, except past performance reviews required for Federal procurement contracts, will be publicly available. Full reporting requirements and procedures are found in Appendix XII to 45 CFR Part 75 Award Term and Conditions for Recipient Integrity and Performance Matters.

We encourage inquiries concerning this funding opportunity and welcome the opportunity to answer questions from potential applicants.

eRA Service Desk (Questions regarding ASSIST, eRA Commons registration, submitting and tracking an application, documenting system problems that threaten submission by the due date, post submission issues)
Finding Help Online: http://grants.nih.gov/support/ (preferred method of contact)

Telephone: 301-402-7469 or 866-504-9552 (Toll Free)

Grants.gov Customer Support (Questions regarding Grants.gov registration and submission, downloading forms and application packages)
Contact Center Telephone: 800-518-4726

Email: support@grants.gov

GrantsInfo (Questions regarding application instructions and process, finding NIH grant resources)
Email: GrantsInfo@nih.gov (preferred method of contact)

Telephone: 301-710-0267

Aaron C. Pawlyk, Ph.D.
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 301-451-7299
Email: pawlykac@mail.nih.gov

Mark Caprara, Ph.D.
Center for Scientific Review (CSR)
Telephone: 301-613-5228
Email: capraramg@csr.nih.gov

Christina Coriz
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 301-594-8848
Email: corizc@niddk.nih.gov

Recently issued trans-NIH policy notices may affect your application submission. A full list of policy notices published by NIH is provided in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts. All awards are subject to the terms and conditions, cost principles, and other considerations described in the NIH Grants Policy Statement.

Awards are made under the authorization of Sections 301 and 405 of the Public Health Service Act as amended (42 USC 241 and 284) and under Federal Regulations 42 CFR Part 52 and 45 CFR Part 75.