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1. Lithium-ion Battery Safety. Safety concerns continue to hamper full adoption of lithium-ion batteries for defense systems, despite significant research investments by the government and the private sector. This Defense initiative will advance promising lithium-ion battery safety technologies at university research laboratories into early laboratory prototypes and potentially minimum viable products for adoption by the defense and commercial sectors via early startups, small businesses and non-traditional defense contractors. Specific technical areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: improved electrolytes; stable high-energy anodes and cathodes; cell components and structures that enhance safety and reliability (e.g. use of electrode coatings and electrolyte additives); safety optimization through battery and battery module design and packaging; and battery management and state of health techniques that prevent and/or mitigate catastrophic failure. 2. Electrical Grid Reliability, Resiliency and Security. Both the defense and commercial sectors recognize the ever-growing criticality to enhance electrical grid reliability, resiliency and security through innovation at the component and system levels.

The goal of this funding opportunity announcement is to continue and expand the open-science, systems-biology enterprise of the AMP-AD Target Discovery and Preclinical Validation Consortium and enable data-driven discovery and validation of novel targets and biomarkers for AD and AD-related dementias through the development of predictive network models of brain health and disease.

WHO CAN APPLY? I-Corps@Ohio funds will be offered on a competitive basis to teams of faculty researchers and graduate students developing institution-based technologies from Ohio colleges and universities. Under the supervision of business and entrepreneurial mentors, teams will develop market-driven value propositions and scalable business models around their technologies and attract follow on funding to support company formation and market entry. APPLICATION PROCESS The I-Corps@Ohio proposal submission process consists of five steps: 1. mandatory meeting with the appropriate TTO representative(s) at the PI's institution; 2. team selection of technology track (science and engineering or medtech); 3. registration of all team members in the online portal; 4. proposal submission; and 5. full team interview with I-Corps@Ohio program representatives. All teams are required to complete the online profile and submission questionnaire beginning October 23, 2019. Deadline to apply is January 15, 2019. The PI may complete this information or designate another member of the team as the lead member. Subsequent members of the team will be invited to join by the lead member through the application portal and must complete his or her profile. Every effort should be made to identify all team members prior to submitting the online proposal submission questionnaire. Additional team members may be added later. You will be asked to select from two tracks: Medtech Track: Teams will select Medtech Track if the subject technology is in the form of medical devices, diagnostics, medicines, vaccines, software, testing procedures and systems and is developed to solve a health/clinical problem and improve the quality of human life. Science and Engineering (S&E) Track: Teams will select S&E Track if the technology does not fit into the Medtech category.

Research!America is requesting proposals from graduate student and postdoc-led science policy groups to participate in the third year of our civic engagement initiative begun in 2018. This year, Research!America provides funding to student groups for virtual activities that focus on civic engagement and sparking dialogue with public officials, local community leaders, and the public around science and health research.

NineSigma, representing Betco Corporation, a privately held specialty chemical and equipment manufacturer, is seeking partners with solutions to clean, disinfect, and sanitize skin and surfaces. Novel products, technology advancements, or other approaches that can demonstrate efficacy to improve the overall cleanliness, health, and safety of commercial environments are of immediate interest.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites exploratory/developmental applications that propose transformative engineering solutions to technical challenges associated with meaningful development, substantial optimization of existing technologies and clinical translation of intraoral biodevices. Proposed technologies are expected to advance development of oral biodevices to clinical use, including but not limited to: precision medicine-based detection, diagnosis and treatment of oral and overall health conditions, and measurement of patient functional status and clinical outcome assessment. Areas of interest in this FOA include engineering approaches that allow integration of electronic, physical, and biological systems essential to the development of functional biodevices that are safe and effective for detection, diagnosis and treatment of oral and systemic disease. Products of this research will be proof-of-concept prototype biodevices, dedicated biosensors and associated core technologies that enable development of safe and effective intra-oral biodevices intended for specific clinical applications. To streamline the development of oral biodevices that advance precision medicine-based approaches in clinical practice, this FOA encourages interdisciplinary collaborations across engineering, multifunctional sensors, pharmacology, chemistry, medicine, and dentistry, as well as between academia and industry.

The INSPIRE awards program was established to address some of the most complicated and pressing scientific problems that lie at the intersection of traditional disciplines.  It is intended to encourage investigators to submit bold, exceptional proposals that some may consider to be at a disadvantage in a standard NSF review process; it is not intended for proposals that are more appropriate for existing award mechanisms.

DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals of interest to the Defense Sciences Office. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science and technology. Specifically excluded is research that results primarily in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of the art.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites innovative research focused on understanding the role of exosome biogenesis and secretion in modulating and propagation of early pathogenesis in sporadic and late-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD). Specifically, this FOA encourages collaborative approaches designed to identify and characterize the regulation of molecular machines that are responsible for exosome biogenesis and the secretion of exosomal cargo molecules in AD.

This FOA invites applications that apply a cross-disciplinary, team science approach to gain comprehensive, mechanistic understanding of the impact of sex differences on the trajectories of brain aging and phenotypes of AD risk and on the responsiveness to pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic interventions.  

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) requests applications for the NIAMS Core Centers for Clinical Research (CCCR) (P30) within its mission. The CCCRs will provide avenues to advance the methodological sciences that support clinical research within and across the NIAMS' portfolio of diseases. The overall goals of the CCCR are to advance prevention, diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal, rheumatologic, and skin diseases by developing and fostering the implementation of novel methods, metrics, and outcome measures that address critical existing and emerging clinical research needs. 

The purpose of the BRAIN Initiative Fellows (F32) program is to enhance the research training of promising postdoctorates, early in their postdoctoral training period, who have the potential to become productive investigators in research areas that will advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative. Applications are encouraged in any research area that is aligned with the BRAIN Initiative, including neuroethics. Applicants are expected to propose research training in an area that complements their predoctoral research. Formal training in quantitative perspectives and analytical tools is expected to be an integral part of the proposed research training plan. In order to maximize the training potential of the F32 award, this program encourages applications from individuals who have not yet completed their terminal doctoral degree and who expect to do so within 12 months of the application due date. On the application due date, candidates may not have completed more than 6 months of postdoctoral training.  

The NIGMS Postdoctoral Research Associate (PRAT) Programs overarching goal is to provide high quality postdoctoral research training in the basic biomedical sciences, in NIH intramural research laboratories, to a diverse group of postdoctoral fellows to prepare them for leadership positions in biomedical careers. The research projects proposed should focus on NIGMS mission-related areas of basic biomedical science. These include cell biology, biophysics, genetics, developmental biology, pharmacology, physiology, biological chemistry, computational biology, technology development and bioinformatics. Studies employing model organisms are encouraged

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-16-006) or to optimize existing technology ready for in-vivo proof-of-concept testing and collection of preliminary data (RFA-NS-16-007) 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 FOA solicits development of innovative adaptations of existing technologies to enable their use for readily identifying, manipulating, or analyzing glycans and their biological binding partners. This may encompass the adaptation of commonly used laboratory-based or computational tools to enable their facile application to glycoscience for the first time, as well as the adaptation of tools presently used by specialists in glycoscience to make them significantly more straightforward and accessible for non-specialists. It is possible that a project might simplify a current specialized approach by migrating it to a more commonly used platform, developing automation for data acquisition and interpretation, or redesigning the present tool to make it easier to use. This announcement differs from the related FOA RFA- RM-16-022 which solicits new or more effective tools or technologies, thus representing an expansion of existing technologies.

This FOA solicits development of innovative adaptations of existing technologies to enable their use for readily identifying, manipulating, or analyzing glycans and their biological binding partners. This may encompass the adaptation of commonly used laboratory-based or computational tools to enable their facile application to glycoscience for the first time, as well as the adaptation of tools presently used by specialists in glycoscience to make them significantly more straightforward and accessible for non-specialists. It is possible that a project might simplify a current specialized approach by migrating it to a more commonly used platform, developing automation for data acquisition and interpretation, or redesigning the present tool to make it easier to use. This announcement differs from the related FOA RFA- RM-16-022 which solicits new or more effective tools or technologies, thus representing an expansion of existing technologies.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) supports a program of longitudinal cohorts to address emerging and high priority research on HIV/AIDS in the context of injection and non-injection substance abuse.  These cohorts provide a strong resource platform for current and future collaborative efforts with other investigators to address emerging questions related to HIV pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment in the context of substance abuse, as well as to foster the creativity and efficiency of investigator-initiated research projects. The diverse research activities among these cohorts include basic immunologic, and virologic studies, as well as studies on HIV prevention and treatment, and the co-morbidities and co-infections associated with HIV and substance abuse.  NIDA has determined that a coordinating center (CC) is needed in order to take advantage of these rich sources of data and bio-specimens and optimize collaborations among both the cohort investigators and other researchers not funded under the cohort program. In addition, the CC is expected to establish a virtual repository, and facilitate the leadership of the cohorts steering committee (SC), consisting of representatives from the NIDA-funded cohorts and NIDA staff. At this time, NIDA is soliciting  cooperative agreement applications for a CC to support the collaborative efforts of the cohorts that are currently funded by NIDA.

The purpose of this specific FOA is to solicit applications to develop and implement a Knowledge Management Center (KMC) for the Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG) Program. The KMC will house, organize, and share metadata and data by accruing and abstracting data and information available in primary literature, databases, and other resources around the world and deploy an integrated informatics solution. However, any proposed human curation efforts will initially focus only on illuminating three major protein families of the IDG project:  non-olfactory G protein-coupled receptors, ion channels and protein kinases. The KMC will identify and scientifically justify the data and resources it proposes to accrue that will enable the biomedical community to easily identify and prioritize protein targets within any gene family to study further. The KMC awardee will be expected to interact and collaborate with all future awardees of the IDG Program, the IDG Consortium, and, future awardees of the IDG CEITs.

This NIH Common Fund initiative will establish national service centers to increase research capacity for molecular structure determination by high resolution cryoelectron microscopy (cryoEM).  The centers will address Common Fund infrastructure and workforce goals for cryoEM by providing access to state-of-the-art equipment, technical support, and cross-training for the production and analysis of high-resolution data.  The centers will offer equal-opportunity nationwide access to services through an open application process.

This FOA will provide support for assays (and associated data analysis) of repository-held samples for studies focused on an NIDDK relevant disease.  The review of applications to this FOA will consider both access to repository-held samples and funding for assays using the samples.  These studies are expected to generate scientific discoveries on disease mechanisms, disease pathogenic processes, disease progression, or clinical responses.  Projects that make good use of the associated data from the clinical trials and studies, the original intent of the clinical study and/or trial are highly encouraged.  Exploratory studies and discovery research are encouraged especially when samples are not severely limited, the work is justified, and the goal is consistent with the original intent of the clinical research.

The Alternatives Research & Development Foundation, a U.S. leader in the funding and promotion of alternatives to the use of laboratory animals in research, testing, and education, is currently soliciting research proposals for its 2017 Alternatives Research Grant Program. For over 20 years, this innovative program has created opportunities for scientists who have interest and expertise in alternatives research.