Group items tagged

The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the areas of: automated and sensor fused data analytics, network infrastructure and system integration, and interfaces and interoperability to support a networked system for the detection, interdiction, and deterrence of clandestine weapons of mass destruction (WMD) activities. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, and systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) seeks to support up to 10 Imaging Scientists who will work at the interface of biology, microscopy hardware, and imaging software at imaging centers across the United States. "Imaging Scientists" might be engineers, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, or biologists who have focused on technology development in either microscopy or data analysis fields. The primary goal of the program is to increase interactions between biologists and technology experts. The Imaging Scientists will have expertise in microscopy hardware and/or imaging software. A successful "Imaging Program" will employ an Imaging Scientist who: a) works collaboratively with experimental biologists on projects at the imaging center; b) participates in courses that disseminate advanced microscopy methods and analysis; c) trains students and postdocs in imaging technology; d) participates in a network of CZI Imaging Scientists to identify needs and drive advances in the imaging field; e) attends twice-yearly CZI scientific workshops and meetings in imaging and adjacent biomedical areas. Each grant will fund salary and fringe benefits for an Imaging Scientist at the center, a modest travel and teaching budget, plus 15% indirect costs. The award period is three years plus an additional two years if the Imaging Program passes a review at year three.

This NOFO will build on previous PEPFAR support under the HHS/CDC HIV treatment program in Côte d'Ivoire (CI) to ensure continuity of comprehensive HIV/AIDS services to an existing pool of clients receiving HIV/AIDS care, support, and/or treatment. The program will also continue expanding access to HIV/AIDS services while building the capacity of national structures and contributing to sustainable service delivery within the health sector in CI. Specifically, it serves to increase capacity and sustainability of the response toward controlling the HIV/AIDS epidemic by initially providing support for HIV service delivery aligning with PEPFAR geographic and programmatic pivots by local indigenous organizations and ultimately providing technical assistance to the national Ministry of Health and Public Hygiene (MSHP) to sustain and expand comprehensive HIV prevention, care, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) programs. The recipient(s) will combine a facility and community-based strategy to support HIV/AIDS services. At the end of the 5-year project period, the recipient(s) should be able to collect and evaluate program data that demonstrates improved quality of HIV prevention, care, and treatment services in CI and to transition activities to MSHP and/or local organizations to sustain a basic HIV service package.

A primary focus of these programs is on the use of in vitro methods and assays using lower organisms to screen thousands of chemicals for toxicity in order to identify mechanisms of compound-induced biological activity, characterize toxicity pathways, facilitate cross-species extrapolation, and provide input to models for low-dose extrapolation.  Data generated by these methods will be used to prioritize compounds for more extensive toxicological evaluation and to develop predictive models for biological response in humans. Current approaches are limited in terms of incorporating genetic variability in toxicity testing and in assessing the effects of chemicals in multiple normal tissue and cell types, relying on immortalized cell lines or primary cell lines derived from tissues. Thus, there is a need for novel, medium- to high-throughput assays (at least a 96-well format) to evaluate the effects of chemical compounds on the differentiation of pluripotent or multi-potent stem cells as well as the effects of chemical exposures on differentiated cell types representative of various in vivo tissues. Approaches can include the use of human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, approved human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines, or ES or iPS cells derived from genetically characterized mouse strains. Assays should be able to measure the effects of toxicants on the differentiation process and/or on the differentiated cells themselves; cell types of high priority include but are not limited to cardiomyocytes, neural cells, hepatocytes, endothelial cells, lung (airway or alveolar) cells, and hormonally-responsive tissues such as reproductive tissues or breast epithelial cells.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to invite Cooperative Agreement (U24) applications for advanced development and enhancement of emerging informatics technologies to improve the acquisition, management, analysis, and dissemination of data and knowledge across the cancer research continuum, including cancer biology, cancer treatment and diagnosis, cancer prevention, cancer control and epidemiology, and/or cancer health disparities. As a component of the NCI's Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) Initiative, this FOA focuses on emerging informatics technology, defined as one that has passed the initial prototyping and pilot development stage, has demonstrated potential to have a significant and broader impact, has compelling reasons for further improvement and enhancement, and has not been widely adopted in the cancer research field. The central mission of ITCR is to promote research-driven informatics technology across the development lifecycle to address priority needs in cancer research.In order to be successful, proposed development plans must have a clear rationale on why the proposed technology is needed and how it will benefit the cancer research field. In addition, mechanisms to solicit feedback from users and collaborators throughout the development process should be included. Potential applicants who are interested in early-stage development or informatics resource sustainment should consult companion FOAs listed above.

The purpose of this funding opportunity is to conduct activities to promote and support vaccination services within the pharmacy setting. Activities include, but are not limited to: - Education/Outreach to pharmacists about current pediatric, adolescent, and adult immunization recommendations and proper vaccine administration - Facilitation of communication and exchange of information between pharmacists and providers and public health programs -Quality Improvement efforts -Improved immunization documentation through use of immunization information systems and data sharing -Coordination with public health preparedness and immunization programs to establish formalized agreements for pandemic vaccine program readiness and response By the end of the project, the awardee is expected to disseminate and promote best practices/successes to a national audience of healthcare providers, including both pharmacists and other healthcare providers.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to invite Cooperative Agreement (U01) applications for the development of enabling informatics technologies to improve the acquisition, management, analysis, and dissemination of data and knowledge across the cancer research continuum including cancer biology, cancer treatment and diagnosis, cancer prevention, cancer control and epidemiology, and/or cancer health disparities. As a component of the NCI's Informatics Technology for Cancer Research (ITCR) Program, this FOA focuses on early-stage development from prototyping to hardening and adaptation. Early-stage development is defined for the purpose of this FOA as the initial development or the significant modification of existing tools for new applications. The central mission of ITCR is to promote research-driven informatics technology across the development lifecycle to address priority needs in cancer research. In order to be successful, proposed development plans must have a clear rationale on why the proposed technology is needed and how it will benefit the cancer research field.

SBR is part of the Environmental System Science (ESS) activity within the Climate and Environmental Sciences Division (CESD) of BER. The CESD mission is to enhance the seasonal to multi-decadal predictability of the Earth system by using long-term field experiments, DOE user facilities, modeling and simulation, uncertainty characterization, best-in-class computing, process research, and data analytics and management to inform the development of advanced solutions to the nation's energy challenges. The 2018 CESD Strategic Plan identifies five scientific grand challenges and associated research questions that will be addressed through the research programs and User Facilities within the division over the next five years (https://science.energy.gov/~/media/ber/pdf/workshop%20reports/2018_CESD_Strategic_Plan.pdf)

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages applications for Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) exploratory/developmental translational research (R21). The mission of the CounterACT program is to foster and support research and development of new and improved therapeutics to mitigate the health effects of chemical threats. Chemical threats are toxic chemicals that could be used in a terrorist attack or accidentally released from industrial production, storage or shipping. They include traditional chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, pesticides, and pharmaceutical-based agents. The scope of the research includes basic toxicological research on the chemical threat for the purpose of target and therapeutic hit identification, hit validation, lead optimization, and demonstration of in vivo ADME/Tox and efficacy. Projects supported by this FOA are expected to generate preliminary data that would facilitate the development of competitive applications for more extensive support from the NIH CounterACT Cooperative Agreement programs or other related initiatives.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) focuses on sensitivity and tolerance mechanisms underlying the development of alcohol use disorders. The intent of this FOA is to: (1) develop hypotheses about cellular, molecular or network mechanisms that regulate sensitivity and tolerance to alcohol, and (2) develop quantitative models to predict the development of tolerance and the progression to alcohol dependence. These objectives will be accomplished with a Phased Innovation (R21/R33) mechanism, in which secondary data analysis or pilot studies can occur during the R21 phase, and research testing the hypotheses can be expanded in the R33 phase. The transition to the R33 phase will be determined by NIAAA program staff after evaluation of the achievement of specific milestones set for the R21 phase. Applicants interested in the genetic basis of tolerance may consider FOA (PA-18-660).

The illicit sale of fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and other synthetic drugs is incredibly profitable, and their high potency in small quantities presents a low risk to traffickers. To respond to this challenge, the U.S. government's understanding of the production, transit, and sale of these drugs and their precursor chemicals must continually increase. We will support a data analytics provider that can produce reliable information to inform our future capacity building programming efforts to combat transnational organized crime. The combination of technology and investigative research on transnational criminal organizations has various potential applications, such as building partner capacity by giving countries leads on various transnational criminal networks, identifying target cells before problems infiltrate neighboring areas, using network overviews for strategy information, and providing training on a limited basis.

The purpose of this FOA is to invite applications for Genomics, Epigenomics, and Transcriptomics Chemical Analysis Sites to join the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium. Awards made through this FOA will support the establishment of sites that will use appropriate technology to conduct genomics, epigenomics, and transcriptomics analysis of tissues collected from human participants and animals undergoing a physical activity intervention, contribute that data to a public consortium database, and participate in the initial statistical analysis to generate fingerprints of candidate molecular transducers of physical activity.

The intent of this FOA is two-fold: (1) develop new hypotheses about key factors and pathways in sensitivity and tolerance to alcohol, and (2) develop a common framework of mechanisms underlying the development of tolerance and the progression to alcohol dependence. These objectives will be accomplished with a Phased Innovation (R21/R33) mechanism, in which secondary data analysis or pilot studies can occur during the R21 phase, and research testing the hypotheses can be expanded in the R33 phase.

Description: The Communications, Circuits, and Sensing-Systems (CCSS) Program supports innovative research in circuit and system hardware and signal processing techniques. CCSS also supports system and network architectures for communications and sensing to enable the next-generation cyber-physical systems (CPS) that leverage computation, communication, and sensing integrated with physical domains. CCSS invests in micro- and nano-electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), physical, chemical, and biological sensing systems, neurotechnologies, and communication & sensing circuits and systems. The goal is to create new complex and hybrid systems ranging from nano- to macro-scale with innovative engineering principles and solutions for a variety of applications including but not limited to healthcare, medicine, environmental and biological monitoring, communications, disaster mitigation, homeland security, intelligent transportation, manufacturing, energy, and smart buildings. CCSS encourages research proposals based on emerging technologies and applications for communications and sensing such as high-speed communications of terabits per second and beyond, sensing and imaging covering microwave to terahertz frequencies, personalized health monitoring and assistance, secured wireless connectivity and sensing for the Internet of Things, and dynamic-data-enabled autonomous systems through real-time sensing and learning.

A central goal of the BRAIN Initiative is to understand how electrical and chemical signals code information in neural circuits and give rise to sensations, thoughts, emotions and actions. While currently available technologies can provide some understanding, they may not be sufficient to accomplish this goal. For example, non-invasive technologies are low resolution and/or provide indirect measures such as blood flow, which are imprecise; invasive technologies can provide information at the level of single neurons producing the fundamental biophysical signals, but they can only be applied to tens or hundreds of neurons, out of a total number in the human brain estimated at 85 billion. Other BRAIN FOAs seek to develop novel technology (RFA-NS-17-003) or to optimize existing technology ready for in-vivo proof-of-concept testing and collection of preliminary data (RFA-NS-17-004) for recording or manipulating neural activity on a scale that is beyond what is currently possible. This FOA seeks applications for unique and innovative technologies that are in an even earlier stage of development than that sought in other FOAs, including new and untested ideas that are in the initial stages of conceptualization.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages grant applications from institutions or organizations that propose multidisciplinary, investigator-initiated basic translational and clinical research in developmental pharmacodynamics This FOA seek grant applications that propose studies to increase and establish data on developmental pharmacodynamics in the pediatric age groups and allows the determination of pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic relationship of drugs used in this population.

In 2015, NEA adopted a comprehensive strategic plan, the Roadmap to Advocacy, after extensive discussions with industry, patients, parents, and provider stakeholders. This plan places significant emphasis on understanding the overall burden of atopic dermatitis (AD), including the impact AD has on patients, families, the healthcare system, places of school and work, and society as a whole. NEA aims to become a steward of burden of disease research by serving as a clearinghouse for patient-centered data that can be readily shared with individuals and organizations interested in improving the lives of patients with eczema. NEA will ultimately utilize research on the burden of AD to further our mission to improve the health and quality of life for individuals with AD.

To that end, the two organizations have issued a Request for Applications for projects that test feasibility and generate preliminary data. MRA and ACS have each committed $1 million for the awards. The combined $2 million will be used to fund Multidisciplinary Team Awards and Pilot Awards. 1) Multidisciplinary Team Awards: At least one grant of up to $1 million will be awarded in this category are designed to foster interdisciplinary collaborative research to promote transformational advances with the potential for rapid clinical benefit. Letters of Intent must be received no later than August. Upon review, selected applicants will be invited to submit full applications by October 31, 2017. 2) Pilot Awards: Up to five grants of up to $200,000 each will be awarded over two years to help seed the ground in this relatively young area of checkpoint irAE research. Applications must be received no later than October 16, 2017.

. A Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number; 2. A valid registration with the System for Award Management (SAM) [formerly known as the Central Contractor Registry (CCR)]; 3. A valid Commercial And Government Entity (CAGE) Code; 4. A valid registration with NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) (this also applies to any entities proposed for sub-awards or subcontracts.) NASA's Office of Education is seeking proposals for a NASA Fellowship Activity 2018. The purpose of the NASA Fellowship Activity 2018 is to support the vitality and diversity of the STEM workforce of NASA and the United States by training and funding graduate students during their STEM academic endeavors and providing access to NASA, its content, unique facilities, and STEM experts. The specific goals of NASA Fellowship Activity are to support the following NASA Education multi-year performance goal and API: A. Multi-year Performance Goal: * 2.4.1: Assure that students participating in NASA higher education projects are representative of the diversity of the nation. B. Annual Performance Indicator:

The National Science Foundation (NSF), through its Divisions of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS), Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF), Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB), and Materials Research (DMR) announces a follow-up solicitation on the Semiconductor Synthetic Biology for Information Storage and Retrieval Program (SemiSynBio-II).  Future ultra-low energy storage-based computing systems can be built on principles derived from organic systems that are at the intersection of physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and engineering.  Next-generation information storage technologies can be envisioned that are driven by biological principles and use biomaterials in the fabrication of devices and systems that can store data for more than 100 years with storage capacity 1,000 times more than current storage technologies.  Such a research effort can have a significant impact on the future of information storage and retrieval technologies. This focused solicitation seeks high-risk/high-return interdisciplinary research on novel concepts and enabling technologies that will address the fundamental scientific issues and technological challenges associated with the underpinnings of synthetic biology integrated with semiconductor technology. This research will foster interactions among various disciplines including biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, computer science and engineering that will enable in heretofore unanticipated breakthroughs.