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NB: Concepts represent early planning stages for PAs, RFAs, or RFPs for Council 's input. Council approval does not guarantee that a concept will become an initiative.
If NIAID publishes an initiative from one of these concepts, we link to it below. For a full list of initiatives, go to NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID.
Table of Contents
NIAID Inner-City
Asthma Consortium: Immunologic Approaches to Reduce Asthma Severity
For the published initiative, see the October 20, 2008, solicitation, Inner City Asthma Consortium.
Request for Proposals
Contact: Robert Koplos
Phone: 301-451-7457
Email: koplosro@niaid.nih.gov
Objective: The goals of this initiative are to assess promising
asthma therapies, evaluate innovative methods for disease monitoring
and to
identify and understand the factors involved in the development of
the immune system and asthma among inner-city children. Focused studies
aimed at the underlying mechanisms of promising therapeutic approaches
will be an integral part of all trials.
Description: This initiative will continue an established consortium
of basic scientists and clinical investigators who have conducted a series
of studies which evaluated the safety, efficacy, and mechanisms of innovative
immune-based therapies among inner-city children with asthma.
B Cell Immunology
for Protective HIV Vaccines
For the published initiatives, see the March
13, 2007, Guide announcements - RFA-AI-07-014
(U01) and RFA-AI-07-015
(R21).
Request for Applications
Contact: Helen Quill
Phone: 301-496-7551
Email: hquill@niaid.nih.gov
Objective: Support investigator-initiated projects that address
fundamental questions in B cell immunology that will facilitate the rational
development
of vaccines capable of inducing broadly-reactive antibody-mediated
protection to HIV-1 infection.
Description: This program will have the following key features:
- Written to attract immunologists working in the field of B cell
immunity to focus on the multitude of unanswered questions about inducing
broadly protective antibody responses to HIV.
- Includes R21 component
for support of new ideas and change of
scope for immunology researchers to obtain data for future
hypothesis-driven studies.
- Features the U01 mechanism to enable needed
oversight and coordination of the research effort in this fledgling
area, ensuring focus
on the program goals, synergistic interactions between grantees,
and facilitating
the availability of essential reagents, samples, and resources.
Research topics will include:
-
Ability of the human B cell repertoire to produce broadly neutralizing
anti-HIV-1 antibodies, both pre- and post selection.
- Occurrence of
rare neutralizing antibodies in HIV-infected individuals—prevalence,
diversity, methods to analyze efficiently.
- Basis for antibody-mediated
protection to HIV.
- Approaches to manipulate expansion of the HIV-specific
B cell repertoire in vaccination without inducing autoimmune responses
- Function
of CD4+ helper and regulatory T cells in controlling the B cell response
to HIV.
- Adjuvant and antigen processing and presentation requirements
for induction of robust B cell responses to HIV:
- Determine specific innate immune triggering pathways that
are most beneficial to robust B cell responses.
- Role of
antigen presenting cells (APC) in presentation of immunogen to
B cells.
- APC function of B cells themselves.
- Memory B cell antigen specificity, induction, and maintenance.
- Regional
immunity, especially mucosal B cell responses and IgA.
Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplantation Research
Request for Applications
Contact: Linda Griffith
Phone: 301-496-7104
Email: LGriffith@niaid.nih.gov
Objective: The RFA will use the U24 mechanism to continue the effort
of supporting a data resource for
analysis of blood and marrow transplants. The availability of the Center
for International
Blood and Marrow Transplantation Research (CIBMTR) to investigators and
health policy
makers will help define the usefulness of transplants in various clinical
situations, identify prognostic factors, compare transplant regimens,
compare transplant and non-transplant
therapies, assess inter-transplant center variability in diagnosis, practice
and outcome,
evaluate transplant costs and cost-effectiveness, plan new clinical trials
or treatment protocols, and develop approaches to evaluating transplant
outcomes. Furthermore, this letter RFA will partially fulfill the legislative
language
of Congress in establishing the national C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation
Program of collecting outcomes data on every/all related and un-related
transplants done in the U.S.
Description: CIBMTR research programs include 1) observational research,
2) immunobiology, 3) bioinformatics, 4) statistical methodology, and
5) clinical trial support.
Observational research includes analyses of the clinical database to
address important issues in the biology and clinical application of HCT – this
is the core activity of the CIBMTR. Proposals to use the CIBMTR database
may be submitted by any interested investigator. Most investigators request
statistical support, so these projects are best accomplished through
the CIBMTR working committees. The working committees have responsibility
for
setting priorities for observational and immunobiology studies using
CIBMTR data. |
