Funding Opportunities

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to encourage grant applications for investigator-initiated clinical trials to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) to establish the efficacy (or compare the effectiveness) of treatment interventions.  These Phase 3, Phase 4 or Pivotal trials must address questions within the mission and research interests of the NINDS and may include studies of drugs, biologics, and devices, as well as surgical, behavioral or rehabilitation therapies.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications for the Morris K. Udall Centers of Excellence for Parkinson’s Disease Research program. The overarching goal of this program is to support specialized research Centers that work collaboratively as well as independently to define the causes of and discover improved treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD). A more immediate goal for each Center is to rapidly advance synergistic, interdisciplinary research programs while serving as national leaders in PD research. Applicants will identify an overall research theme that directly addresses a critical challenge in PD research. The Center theme, proposed research projects, and associated cores will inform the etiology, pathogenesis, or treatment of PD; investigations on related synucleinopathies may be included if such directly address the identified PD research challenge. Udall Centers also serve as local resources by providing research career enhancement activities for Center investigators and periodic outreach to the PD patient/advocacy community. Required components of this FOA include: an Overall section describing the Center theme, vision and organization; three or more Research Projects, plus a dedicated Udall Catalyst research project led by an early career researcher poised to become an expert in PD research; an Administrative Core; at least one integrated Research Core that is essential to and accelerates the progress of two or more Research Projects; a mission statement for career enhancement of Center investigators, and a plan for periodic outreach to the local patient/advocacy community, including specific outreach events to convey Center research advances. The NINDS Udall Centers program prioritizes innovative and integrative research with significant potential for discovery. Considerable synergy must be evident among Center research projects and cores, such that the Center structure is required for successful completion of the aims. Funding decisions will focus on those applications most likely to make significant contributions to PD research, as well as those with greatest potential to collaborate effectively across the Udall Centers program.  

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites Exploratory Grant (P20) applications for the planning and initiation of collaborative efforts to advance Parkinson's Disease (PD) research. The goal of this program is to formalize new collaborative directions and/or novel interdisciplinary teams to address critical gaps in PD research and to establish a rigorous foundation of research discovery leading directly to an NINDS Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence (P50) application. Through this mechanism, the NINDS seeks to develop synergistic, proof-of-concept research efforts around investigator-defined gaps in PD research and support collaborative teams to develop a research plan, construct an effective administrative organization, create standardized policies/procedures, and gather rigorous preliminary data in support of novel ideas to address urgent needs and emergent issues in PD research. The Exploratory Grant theme and proposed research feasibility projects will inform the etiology, pathogenesis, or treatment of PD; investigations on related synucleinopathies may be included if such directly address the identified PD research gap. Required components of this FOA include an Overall section, an Administrative Core, and three or more research feasibility projects, at least one of which must be led by an early career researcher poised to become an expert in PD research. Synergy among proposed research projects must be evident as well as required for successful completion of the overall aims. To foster the development of innovative research consortia, this solicitation will provide support to formalize new collaborative directions and/or novel interdisciplinary teams only. NINDS funding decisions will focus primarily on scientific merit, i.e., on those applications that are most likely to make innovative contributions to PD research and that demonstrate potential to submit a P50 application at the end of the Exploratory Grant project period.  

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) invites applications to develop a multisite, longitudinal, prospective study of idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) as a prodromal phase of α-synuclein neurodegenerative disorders. 

The purpose of the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to support the use and analysis of data available through the knowledge portal for the Accelerating Medicine Partnership in Parkinson’s disease (AMP PD). This FOA invites applications that will utilize AMP PD data within the AMP PD Google cloud environment to apply computational approaches that will enable data integration and analysis across AMP PD clinical, genomic and transcriptional datasets to identify algorithms, biomarkers and biological pathways related to Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, prognosis and progression. Datasets outside of AMP PD may be brought into the AMP PD cloud environment to further the analysis and validation of discoveries originating from the use of AMP PD data. Computational approaches will be developed and managed through the application of Jupyter notebooks in the AMP PD cloud environment. Workflows and tools developed through this research will be deposited in the AMP PD methods repository for broad sharing with the research community.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites researchers to submit applications for support of clinical studies that address critical needs for clinical trial readiness in rare neurological and neuromuscular diseases. These studies should result in clinically validated biomarkers and clinical outcome assessment measures appropriate for use in upcoming clinical trials. Through the support of trial readiness studies, NINDS and NCATS expect to enhance the quality and increase the likelihood of success of clinical trials in these rare diseases.

The overarching purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to promote the discovery of strong candidate biomarkers and biomarker signatures for neurological and neuromuscular disorders/diseases that can be used as tools to facilitate the clinical development of neurotherapeutics and their use in clinical practice. Specifically, the focus of this FOA is on the identification and initial biological, analytical and clinical evaluation of biomarkers and biomarker signatures for neurological or neuromuscular disorders/diseases. Although research supported by this FOA can include animal studies, it must also include preliminary evaluation of the biomarker or biomarker signature in carefully standardized human samples or datasets. The goal of this initiative is to deliver candidate biomarkers and biomarker signatures that are ready for definitive analytical and clinical validation studies (see PAR-18-548, PAR-18-549, PAR-18-550 , PAR-19-220 and PAR-18-664).

The overarching purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to fill critical scientific gaps needed to advance strong candidate biomarkers of neurological disease from discovery to clinical use. Specifically, the focus of this FOA is on the validation of analytical methods for biomarker measurements, including evaluation of the assay, its performance characteristics, and the optimal conditions that will generate reproducibility and accuracy consistent with FDA guidelines that are fit for the purpose of the assay.

The overarching purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to fill critical scientific gaps needed to advance strong candidate biomarkers of neurological disease from discovery to clinical use. Specifically, the focus of this FOA is on the validation of analytical methods for biomarker measurements, including evaluation of the assay, its performance characteristics, and the optimal conditions that will generate reproducibility and accuracy consistent with FDA guidelines that are fit for the purpose of the assay.

The overarching purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to fill critical scientific gaps needed to advance strong candidate biomarkers from discovery to clinical use. Specifically, the focus of this FOA is to support the clinical validation of candidate biomarkers of neurological disease using retrospective and/or prospective methods. Research supported by this FOA should demonstrate that biomarker change is reliably correlated with variables such as clinical outcome, disease progression, disease onset and severity, drug target engagement or response to a drug. In addition, biomarker response should be specific to the disease or therapeutic as demonstrated at multiple clinical sites.

The overarching purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to fill critical scientific gaps needed to advance strong candidate biomarkers from discovery to clinical use. Specifically, the focus of this FOA is to support the clinical validation of candidate biomarkers of neurological disease using retrospective and/or prospective methods. Research supported by this FOA should demonstrate that biomarker change is reliably correlated with variables such as clinical outcome, disease progression, disease onset and severity, drug target engagement or response to a drug. In addition, biomarker response should be specific to the disease or therapeutic as demonstrated at multiple clinical sites.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to encourage grant applications for investigator-initiated exploratory clinical trials to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The trials must address questions within the mission and research interests of the NINDS and may include Phase 1 and 2 studies of drugs and biologics, feasibility studies of devices, and early studies of surgical, behavioral or rehabilitation therapies.  All exploratory trials must contribute to the justification for, and provide some of the data required to inform a future trial to establish efficacy (such as a Phase 3, Phase 4 or Pivotal trial).

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to support innovative approaches to identifying, understanding, and developing strategies for overcoming barriers to the adoption, adaptation, integration, scale-up and sustainability of evidence-based interventions, tools, policies, and guidelines. Conversely, there is a benefit in understanding circumstances that create a need to stop or reduce (“de-implement”) the use of interventions that are ineffective, unproven, low-value, or harmful. In addition, studies to advance dissemination and implementation research methods and measures are encouraged.

All applications must be within the scope of the mission of one of the Institutes/Centers listed above.

Companion Funding Opportunity:

PAR-19-275, R21 Exploratory/Developmental Grant

PAR-19-276, R03 Small Grant Program  

Contact: Peter.Gilbert@nih.gov

The purpose of this initiative is to identify potential diagnostic markers for the Lewy Body Dementias using non-blood or non-CSF peripheral specimens and tissues (e.g., skin, salivary gland, gastrointestinal tract, etc.). Blood and CSF have traditionally and extensively been examined for neurodegenerative disease biomarkers; however, research suggests that abnormal alpha-synuclein accumulation occurs in other peripheral tissues and specimens early in the disease course and may provide opportunities for early diagnosis and future treatment development.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to encourage grant applications for investigator-initiated prospective observational comparative effectiveness research (CER) to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) (note: only prospective observational studies will be considered)). The study must address questions within the mission and research interests of the NINDS and may evaluate preventive strategies, diagnostic approaches, or interventions including drugs, biologics, and devices, or surgical, behavioral, and rehabilitation therapies. NINDS is particularly interested in pragmatic study designs that utilize a cost-effective means of prospectively collecting observational data important to current clinical practice.