NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research - NCRR Topics

NIH has received new funds for fiscal years 2009 and 2010 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), public law number 111-5. NIH has designated at least $200 million in FY 2009 and FY 2010 for a new initiative called the NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science Research.

This new program will support research on topic areas that address specific scientific and health research challenges in biomedical and behavioral research that would benefit from significant 2-year jump-start funds.

NIH anticipates funding 200 or more grants, each of up to $1 million in total costs, pending the number and quality of applications and availability of funds.

In addition, Recovery Act funds allocated to NIH specifically for comparative effectiveness research (CER) may be available to support additional grants. Projects receiving these funds will need to meet this definition of CER:

"[A] rigorous evaluation of the impact of different options that are available for treating a given medical condition for a particular set of patients. Such a study may compare similar treatments, such as competing drugs, or it may analyze very different approaches, such as surgery and drug therapy."

Such research may include the development and use of clinical registries, clinical data networks, and other forms of electronic health data that can be used to generate or obtain outcomes data as they apply to CER.

The application due date is April 27, 2009.

Broad Challenge Areas and Specific Challenge Topics

NIH has identified a range of challenge areas that focus on specific knowledge gaps, scientific opportunities, new technologies, data generation or research methods that would benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways. Each NIH institute, center and office has selected specific challenge topics within the broad challenge areas related to its mission. The research in these challenge areas should have a high impact in biomedical or behavioral science and/or public health.

Note: Those marked with an asterisk (*) are the highest priority topics; however, applicants may apply to any of the topics.

For NCRR, the challenge topics are:

(02) Bioethics

02-RR-101* Recontact Issues in Genotype and Genome-Wide Association Studies.

Genotype and genome-wide association studies create challenging re-contact issues if subjects are later to be asked to return for clinical research including phenotyping. Applicants would propose 2-year awards for pilot programs that would be implemented at 3 or more affiliated sites to develop and apply IRB guidelines that addressed ethical barriers (e.g., re-contacting) in genotype - phenotype studies. This idea is submitted through NCRR on account of the ethics work underway at the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) and, if accepted, would be developed with NHGRI's ELSI Division.

  Contact: Andrea Sawczuk, tel. 301-435-0792; or e-mail, SawczukA@mail.nih.gov

02-OD(OSP)-103* Ethical Issues Associated with Electronic Sharing of Health Information.

The development of an electronic health information infrastructure and the sharing of health information for patient care and research offer enormous promise to improve health care and promote scientific advances. However, the broad sharing of such data raises numerous ethical issues that may benefit from additional studies (e.g. those related to privacy and confidentiality). Examples include studies to assess risks associated with health information technology and the broad sharing of health information for research, and novel approaches for mitigating them. Examination could also include analysis of current oversight paradigms and suggestions for enhancements, as well as assessments of how privacy risks may change in the future.

  NIH/OD(OSP) Contact: Abigail Rives, tel. 301-594-1976; or e-mail, RivesA@od.nih.gov
  NCRR Contact: Elaine Collier, tel. 301-435-0794; or e-mail, CollierE@mail.nih.gov

(05) Comparative Effectiveness Research

05-RR-101* Build CER Capacity Through Education

Build capacity for subject recruitment, IRB and regulatory compliance, and data management for comparative effectiveness research conducted in community environments. Applicants could propose educational experiences and resources for study coordinators, medical auxiliaries, and data managers that would build capacity for the conduct of comparative effectiveness research in community settings. Where appropriate, these applications could develop links with existing clinical research infrastructure resources.

  Contact: Anthony Hayward, tel. 301-435-0791; or e-mail, HaywardA@mail.nih.gov

05-RR-102* Support Pilot CER Projects in Community Settings.

Pilot/demonstration projects using collaborations between academic health centers and community-based organizations or community-based research networks that bring CER into community settings.

  Contact: Anthony Hayward, tel. 301-435-0791; or e-mail, HaywardA@mail.nih.gov

(06) Enabling Technologies

06-RR-101* Virtual environments for Multidisciplinary and Translational Research.

Virtual networking environments like Science Commons, Facebook and Second Life, create platforms that can eliminate many barriers in scientific collaborations. These environments integrate fragmented information sources, enable "one-click" access to research resources, and assist in re-use of scientific workflows. Funded projects would develop and implement virtual collaborative environments to facilitate biomedical and translational research, e.g. addressing issues of privacy, technology transfers and sharing resources.

  Contact: Olga Brazhnik, tel. 301-435-0758; or e-mail, Brazhnik@mail.nih.gov

06-RR-102* Infrastructure for Biomedical Knowledge Discovery.

Biomedical research depends on heterogeneous data of varying reliability that are increasingly multimedia and high-dimensional. Recent advances in web technologies enable discovery and aggregation of disparate data on specified topics, visualization and navigation of complex and abundant data, extraction of concepts from text, and detection of associations. Funded projects would coalesce the most effective information technologies with domain specific knowledge structures and data processing and to create computational infrastructures for integrated, customizable access to biomedical data.

  Contact: Olga Brazhnik, tel. 301-435-0758; or e-mail, Brazhnik@mail.nih.gov

(10) Information Technology for Utilizing Health Care Data Research

10-RR-101* Information Technology Demonstration Projects Facilitating Secondary Use of Healthcare Data for Research

Analysis of enormous amounts of aggregate, anonymous, healthcare data has potential to provide evidence for best practices and to identify promising areas for additional research. The increasing adoption of health information technology in the United States offers a source of large amounts of data. This initiative would fund development of policies and technology to ensure stringent protection of individual privacy for aggregate anonymous data used for research. Examples of responsive topics include, but are not limited to: multi-institutional data repository research querying projects; vocabulary and ontology standards in data repositories; policies, process, and governance of data repositories; and Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) procedures for data for clinical data research repositories.

  Contact: Elaine Collier, tel. 301-435-0794; or e-mail, CollierE@mail.nih.gov

(15) Translational Science

15-RR-101* Applied Translational Technology Development.

This program will support two-year applied translational projects to move advanced technologies from the prototype stage into the clinic. Novel, cost-effective tools for clinical care or clinical research will be modified, hardened, and tested. Interdisciplinary teams of technology developers, basic researchers and clinicians will address scientific and engineering problems associated with clinical applications of new technologies.

  Contact: Douglas Sheeley, tel. 301-594-9762; or e-mail, SheeleyD@mail.nih.gov

15-RR-102 Develop a Nationwide Electronic Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) Database System.

Develop a nationwide electronic MTA system that will facilitate the rapid exchange of research materials. Such a web-based workflow management database system would be available as a national resource that would facilitate the rapid location of research materials and allow for near instantaneous MTA turn around time. The system should strive to appear as a peer-to-peer material location and transfer system to researchers, simultaneously providing institutional technology transfer offices with efficiency and management of materials, as well as, automation of MTA negotiation and processing. In addition, the system will provide broad metrics related to materials, their funding sources, and the granting agency.

  Contact:Lili Portilla, tel. 301-451-1467; or e-mail, PortillL@mail.nih.gov

Contact Information

For general information on NCRR implementation of NIH Challenge Grants, contact: