NIAID Funding News January 23, 2013

Opportunities and Resources

In The News

Advice Corner

New Funding Opportunities

Header: Opportunities and Resources.

Submit Your Application for AIDS Vaccine Development Program

Here's your shot at helping NIAID address one of its top priorities: developing a safe and effective prophylactic vaccine against HIV/AIDS.

Consider applying for the Integrated Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development (IPCAVD) Program, which facilitates moving advanced, innovative, and promising vaccine candidates into early clinical testing.

Through IPCAVD, you can receive seven years' support for all stages of vaccine platform research and development, product development stages, and IND-enabling studies and regulatory submissions.

Your multiproject application must include a minimum of two research projects, one of which has to perform product manufacture. For each project, you should clearly describe goals with measurable milestones and provide a timeline for meeting them.

Though NIAID will not provide funds for conducting clinical trials, we require that you have a clinical development plan outlining how you will initiate a clinical trial during the first five years of the award since we expect you to move your proposed vaccine into clinical testing.

Reduced funding in years six and seven will support ongoing stability studies, updating regulatory submissions, and further optimization of the vaccine product as informed from the clinical studies.

A word of caution: avoid proposing only preclinical research. Your application won't be considered appropriate for this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) and will not be reviewed.

Get complete details on application requirements in the December 14, 2012, Guide notice.

The FOA has three due dates, the first of which is March 15, 2013. For that deadline, optional letters of intent must be submitted by February 15.

For advice on writing your application, go to our Guidance for Preparing a Multiproject Research Application.

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RFA Seeks Centers of Excellence for Medical Countermeasures

If your work can translate basic research to medical countermeasures against NIAID's Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases, including NIAID Category A, B, and C Priority Pathogens, we have a new funding opportunity for you.

Building on the success of our Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, this new request for applications (RFA) supports centers of excellence in developing medical countermeasures and technologies.

To qualify, your center must have three to six interdependent research projects organized around a common theme, and you can focus on early-discovery-based efforts, late-stage preclinical development, or any stage in between.

You may propose a single countermeasure, but shy away from a "one-bug, one-drug" concept and instead target flexible, broad-spectrum approaches and technologies.

If your application is funded, you can get up to $4 million in annual direct costs for up to five years.

Because of the translational nature of your research, make sure your application addresses any constraints, challenges, and barriers to product development, licensure, and usage.

Also note: we do not accept clinical trials for this RFA.

Read the November 23, 2012, Guide notice for instructions, program requirements, and examples of research themes. Applications are due March 26, 2013.

Header: Other News.

NIAID Ups F Interim Paylines

We raised FY 2013 interim paylines for fellowship awards. New interim paylines are:

  • F31—30 overall impact score
  • F32—25 overall impact score

Go to NIAID Paylines for more payline information.

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For the First Time: Catch Council Proceedings Online

February's meeting of our advisory Council comes with a new perk: you can watch our director's remarks and subcommittee proceedings online.

On February 4, go to NIH VideoCasting and Podcasting to view the following sessions:

Previously, you had only two options to catch Council live: attend in person or watch from a computer on NIH's internal network. Now, you can tune in from anywhere you have an internet connection.

If you miss the live sessions, you can view archives at the links above.

Go to NIAID Council Agenda for a full list of February Council events, including subcommittee hearings:

Visit our Advisory Council portal for information about Council's role, function, and membership.

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News Briefs

Application Deadline Extension for Tuberculosis Research RFA. NIAID extended the application deadline for Tuberculosis Research Units (U19) to July 1, 2013. See the January 8, 2013, Guide notice. We wrote about the RFA in the November 28, 2012, article "TB Researchers, Unite!"

More Tools to Support Compliance with Public Access Rules. NIH released a Public Access Compliance Monitor to help institutions track the compliance of publications that fall under NIH's public access policy. Get details in the January 9, 2013,Guide notice. It also created a button on the My Bibliography portal to download the publications report as a PDF formatted for progress reporting—see the January 10, 2013, Guide notice for more information.

Senior-Level Job Opportunity in DEA. NIAID seeks a director of its Office of Knowledge and Educational Resources in theDivision of Extramural Activities. Qualified applicants must have NIH program or peer review experience. For details and full job description, read the USAJOBS announcement. This is the position referenced in our November 28, 2012, article “Coming Soon: Supervisory Job Opportunity in NIAID's Division of Extramural Activities.”

Header: Advice Corner.

Get Institutional Approval for Preaward Spending

Did you know you may be able to use your institution’s money to begin your project up to 90 days before your grant’s official start date?

Contact your institution’s business office for approval on preaward spending, as your institution takes on the responsibility of your expenses in the event that we reduce your award or cannot issue your grant.

Make sure that charges:

  • Are necessary to conduct the project.
  • Are allowable under the grant, if awarded, without NIH prior approval.
  • Will not impair your ability to accomplish the project objective in the approved time frame or adversely affect the conduct of the project.

Preaward spending does not affect the timing of your award. Your grant still starts on the same date, and your renewal and reporting deadlines also stay the same.

Always exercise caution—we may not make your award by the "Earliest Project Start Date" mentioned on NIH's Standard Due Dates for Competing Applications.

Header: Reader Questions.

Feel free to send us a question at deaweb@niaid.nih.gov. After responding to you, we may include your question in the newsletter, incorporate it into the NIAID Research Funding site, or both.

"Can you sign me up to receive funding opportunity alerts?"—anonymous reader

Good news: you can control your own email subscriptions for information from NIAID.

We offer alerts on a variety of funding opportunities as well as other subjects. Go to NIAID Email Alerts Subscription Centerfor a summary of topics and what to do.

We also tweet new funding opportunities and other important announcements. Follow @NIAIDFunding on Twitter.

"Do I need to submit a final progress report if I request a no-cost extension in my last year of the award?"—anonymous reader

Yes, but you'll send it within 90 days after the end of your no-cost extension. Read the following pages for more information:

Also note that if you submit a renewal application before the due date of your progress report, you do not need to submit a separate progress report for your grant. Include this information under the progress report header in your Research Strategy.

For more advice on progress reporting, contact your program officer.

Header: New Funding Opportunities.

See other announcements at NIAID Funding Opportunities List.

Content last reviewed on December 12, 2014