Research Opportunities

October 03, 2019

resources for pursuing endocrine-related research opportunities

Endocrine researchers are at the core of solving many of the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, thyroid conditions, and hormone-related cancers. Your work has led to incredible accomplishments and remarkable progress in the biological and biomedical sciences that have benefited the lives of millions of Americans.

Highlights for Endocrine-related Research from the NIH Grants Guide

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Microbiome and Aging: Impact on Health and Disease. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites projects focused on defining the factors that influence microbiome composition and functional characteristics during aging, understanding how the aging microbiome relates to the causes and pathophysiology of age-related chronic diseases, and development and testing of targeted interventions through diet, drugs, or live organisms. Release Date: July 23, 2019. Application Due Date: October 30, 2019
Anticipated Funding Opportunity Announcement: Reissuance of RFA-CA-18-026, "Improving the Reach and Quality of Cancer Care in Rural Populations. The purpose of this FOA will be to reduce the burden of cancer and improve the quality of cancer care in rural areas among low-income and/or underserved populations. Four to six awards are expected which will address: 1) observational research that includes pilot testing of interventions to understand and address predictors of cancer care/treatment and outcomes in rural low-income and/or underserved populations; or 2) intervention research to address known predictors of cancer care/treatment and outcomes in rural low-income and/or underserved populations. Release Date: July 26, 2019, with an expected publication date for the FOA of September 27, 2019.
Funding Opportunity Announcement: Pilot Projects Investigating Understudied G Protein-Coupled Receptors, Ion Channels, and Protein Kinases. The goal of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for the Common Fund Program "Illuminating the Druggable Genome" (IDG; https://commonfund.nih.gov/idg/index) is to solicit applications for pilot projects on IDG-eligible understudied proteins (non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, and ion channels) in order to study them beyond what the IDG’s Centers can accomplish and to validate and demonstrate the utility of IDG-generated reagents, data, and approaches. Release Date: July 10, 2019. Application Due Date: October 28, 2019.
Change to Funding Opportunity Announcement: Mechanism for Time-Sensitive Opportunities in Environmental Health Sciences. This notice announces the extension of RFA-ES-16-005; the FOA now expires on October 2, 2019. Release Date: July 1, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Implementation Research on Hypertension Control to Prevent Dementia and Cognitive Decline. This FOA invites applications proposing to conduct research involving pragmatic clinical trials on dissemination and implementation of practical approaches to hypertension treatment and control strategies among older adults with multimorbidity in order to prevent sequelae, including mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Release Date: June 25, 2019. Application Due Date: October 22, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Grants for Early Medical/Surgical Specialists' Transition to Aging Research (GEMSSTAR). The GEMSSTAR FOA provides small grants for early-career physician-scientists trained in medical or surgical specialties or early-career dentist-scientists to launch careers as future leaders in aging- or geriatric-focused research to conduct transdisciplinary aging research that will yield pilot data and experience for subsequent aging research projects. Release Date: June 25, 2019. Application Due Date: October 2, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: NIA Multi-site Clinical Trial Implementation Grant. This FOA invites applications for implementation of investigator-initiated multi-site interventional clinical trials (all phases). The trials should be hypothesis-driven, milestone-defined, and related to the National Institute on Aging’s research mission. Release Date: June 24, 2019. Standard due dates apply.
Notice of Special Interest: Understanding Factors in Infancy and Early Childhood (Birth to 24 months) That Influence Obesity Development. NHLBI encourages research applications that aim to delineate behavioral, biological, psychosocial, and/or environmental factors and their potential interactions that increase or mitigate the risk of obesity from birth to 24 months. Bi-directional influences between the child, caregivers/parents, and environment are of interest. Research to address methodological research gaps in the study of obesity and obesity-related factors in infants and young children is strongly encouraged. Release Date: May 21, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Workshops on the Use of Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Data. This NIDA/NIMH R25 program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs in the use of ABCD data. This FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on Courses for Skills Development. In particular, NIDA/NIMH are interested in supporting short-term workshops that will allow participants to explore the hands-on use of ABCD data, through cooperative or competitive approaches. Release Date: May 22, 2019. Application Due Date: October 17, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Adipogenesis, Adipocyte Function and Obesity Following HIV Infection, Antiretroviral Therapy, or Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis. his FOA seeks applications to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of how HIV and antiretroviral drugs used for therapy or pre-exposure prophylaxis contribute to the development of obesity and alter adipocyte and adipose tissue function as well as the effects of these processes on metabolic and physiological processes within the mission of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Release Date: May 29, 2019. Application Due Date: November 7, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: The Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Genomic Risk Assessment and Management Network. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications to participate in eMERGE. The network will use biorepositories linked to electronic medical records (EMRs) for genomic research by developing, evaluating, and disseminating genomic risk assessment and management tools for clinical use. Note companion FOAs for Enhanced Diversity Clinical Sites and the Coordinating Center. Release Date: May 23, 2019. Application Due Date: August 2, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Brain Initiative: Research to Develop and Validate Advanced Human Cell-Based Assays To Model Brain Structure and Function. This FOA encourages research grant applications directed toward developing next-generation human cell-derived assays that replicate complex nervous system architectures and physiology with improved fidelity over current capabilities. Projects will be expected to enable future studies of complex nervous system development, function and aging in healthy and disease states. Release Date: May 31, 2019. Application Due Date: November 1, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Mechanistic Ancillary Studies to Ongoing Clinical Projects. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits applications that propose to conduct time-sensitive mechanistic ancillary studies related to the NIAMS mission in conjunction with privately or publicly funded, ongoing clinical projects. Release date: April 26, 2019. Application Due Dates: August 5, 2019; December 2, 2019; April 1, 2020; August 3, 2020; December 1, 2020.

Request for Information: Comments and suggestions for the development of the NIA Longitudinal Rat Resource. NIA invites feedback on the proposed resource from researchers in academia and industry, healthcare professionals, patient and health advocacy organizations, scientific and professional organizations, and other interested stakeholders. Release date: April 25, 2019. Due Date: July 15, 2019.

Notice of Webinar: NIGMS Technology Development Funding Opportunity Announcements. The technology development FOAs encourage evaluation of technological hypotheses without the pressure to additionally test unknown biological questions. Technologies might originate from biomedical disciplines or from engineering and the physical sciences. Examples include instruments, devices, processes, algorithms, software, chemicals, biomolecules, or cells that have potential value for generating new basic biomedical research. Time: May 14, 2019 3:00 - 4:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada).

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Biological Testing Facility Access For Contraceptive Development. The purpose of this FOA is to provide investigators with a mechanism to request services from NICHD’s state-of-the-art Biological Testing Facility to advance their contraceptive development program. Release Date: May 1, 2019. Due Dates: July 1, 2019, December 16, 2019, May 1, 2020

Funding Opportunity Announcement: NIH Director’s Transformative Research Awards. The NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award Program supports individual scientists or groups of scientists proposing groundbreaking, exceptionally innovative, original, and/or unconventional research with the potential to create new scientific paradigms, establish entirely new and improved clinical approaches, or develop transformative technologies. Release date: March 28, 2019. Due date: September 20, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: NIH Director’s Early Independence Awards. The NIH Director's Early Independence Award supports exceptional investigators who wish to pursue independent research essentially after completion of their terminal doctoral/research degree or end of post-graduate clinical training, thereby forgoing the traditional post-doctoral training period and accelerating their entry into an independent research career. Release date: March 28, 2019. Due date: September 13, 2019

Request for Applications: NIH Director’s Pioneer Award Program. The Program supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose highly innovative and potentially transformative research towards the ultimate goal of enhancing human health. For the program to support the best possible researchers and research, applications are sought which reflect the full diversity of the research workforce. Release date: April 3, 2019. Due date: September 9, 2019.

Notice of Special Interest: Research on the Health of Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Populations. This Notice encourages research that describes the biological, clinical, behavioral, and social processes that affect the health and development of SGM populations and individuals and their families, and that leads to the development of acceptable and appropriate health interventions and health service delivery methods that will enhance health and development of these populations. Release date: March 13, 2019.

Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Computational and Statistical Methods to Enhance Discovery from Health Data. The National Library of Medicine invites research grant applications that propose state of the art methods and approaches to address problems with large health data sets or tools used to analyze them, whether the data are drawn from electronic health records or public health data sets, biomedical imaging, omics repositories or other biomedical or social/behavioral data sets. Release date: March 19, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Small Grants for New Investigators to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research. This R21 will support small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources and seeks to facilitate the transition to research independence of diverse New Investigators. Release date: March 18, 2019. Standard due dates.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Nutrition Obesity Research Centers (NORCs). The Nutrition Obesity Research Centers (NORC) program is designed to support and enhance the national research effort in nutrition and obesity. Release date: March 13, 2019. Due dates: October 23, 2019 and June 2, 2020

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Next Generation Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (NGM). This FOA will support the development of new and innovative on-demand, event -driven and long-acting systemic and non-systemic multipurpose prevention technologies (MPT that prevent HIV infection and pregnancy (hormonal and non-hormonal methods); sexually transmitted infections (STI) and pregnancy, and (HIV/STI) and non-HIV STI MPTs in cis and trans males and females of all ages. Posted March 4, 2019. Application due dates May 6, 2019, May 6, 2020, May 6, 2021.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Senior Fellowship (Parent F33) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards senior individual research training fellowships to experienced scientists who wish to make major changes in the direction of their research careers or who wish to broaden their scientific background by acquiring new research capabilities as independent investigators in research fields relevant to the missions of participating NIH Institutes and Centers. Posted February 21, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellowship for Students at Institutions with NIH-Funded Institutional Predoctoral Dual-Degree Training Programs and at Institutions Without NIH-Funded Institutional Predoctoral Dual-Degree Training Programs (Parent F30). The purpose of the Kirschstein-NRSA, dual-doctoral degree, predoctoral fellowship (F30) is to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising predoctoral students, who are matriculated in a combined MD/PhD or other dual-doctoral degree training program (e.g., DO/PhD, DDS/PhD, AuD/PhD, DVM/PhD), and who intend careers as physician/clinician-scientists. Posted February 22, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (Parent F32), Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (Parent F31), and Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Parent F31). Through these award programs, promising predoctoral students and postdoctoral trainees will obtain individualized, mentored research training from outstanding faculty sponsors while conducting well-defined research projects in scientific health-related fields relevant to the missions of the participating NIH Institutes and Centers. Posted February 22, 2019.

Funding Opportunity Announcement: Microbial-based Cancer Therapy -Bugs as Drugs (R01/R21) The overall purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to stimulate the development of novel microbial-based cancer therapies, especially for conditions where conventional cancer therapies are inadequate, such as poorly vascularized, hypoxic, solid tumors, dormant or slowly dividing cells resistant to current interventions, and brain tumors. Posted February 22, 2019.

Special Emphasis Notice: Health Services Research Priorities for Achieving a High Value Healthcare System. The purpose of this Notice is to inform the research community that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is interested in receiving health services research grant applications to advance our national goal of achieving a high value healthcare system. Posted February 25, 2019.

Data Repositories

The following resources may be useful for researchers seeking data repositories, databases, or other opportunities for data deposition and/or sharing.

NIH Newsletters

NIEHS Environmental Factor: The March issue of Environmental Factor features a summary of a symposium on pre- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and highlights from discussions from recent meetings of the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors and NIEHS Advisory Council.
CSR Peer Review Notes: The September issue of Peer Review Notes highlights updates to NIH efforts to enhance the reproducibility of supported research. The issue also includes information on new videos to help NIH grant applicants navigate peer review.
NICHDevelopments: The February issue features research showing sex differences in concussions, new data sharing resources to connect investigators to research resources for projects aimed improving the health outcomes of newborns with genetic or congenital disorders, and selected NICHD requests for applications and program announcements
NIDDK Annual Report: In January 2019, NIDDK released their annual Recent Advances & Emerging Opportunities report. The publication demonstrates the value and promise of research by sharing examples of NIDDK-funded research including “Stories of Discovery”, “Scientific Presentations” and “Patient Profiles”