January 2023 DAIT Council-Approved Concepts

Concepts represent early planning stages for program announcements, requests for applications, notices of special interest, or solicitations for Council's input. If NIAID publishes an initiative from one of these concepts, we link to it below. To find initiatives, go to Opportunities & Announcements.

Note: Council approval does not guarantee that a concept will become an initiative.

Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Concepts

Innovations in Functional B Cell Epitope Discovery
T Cell Immune Epitope Discovery and Mechanisms of T Cell Protection
NIAID SPF Macaque Breeding Colonies
Immune Mechanisms at the Maternal-Fetal Interface
Notice of Special Interest (NOSI)—Complement in Fundamental Immunology

Fiscal Year 2024 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Contract Solicitation Topics

Adjuvant Development for Vaccines for Infectious and Immune-Mediated Diseases
Adjuvant Discovery and Down-Selection for Vaccines Against Infectious and Immune-Mediated Diseases
Reagents for Immunologic Analysis of Non-Mammalian and Underrepresented Mammalian Models
Software or Web Services to Automate Metadata Enrichment and Standardization for Data on Infectious and Immune-Mediated Diseases
Software or Web Services to Re-Represent Existing Scientific Data and Knowledge into a Knowledge Graph Format

Innovations in Functional B Cell Epitope Discovery

For the published broad agency announcement, check the May 23, 2023 solicitation, Innovations in Functional B Cell Epitope Discovery.

T Cell Immune Epitope Discovery and Mechanisms of T Cell Protection

For the published broad agency announcement, check the March 21, 2023 solicitation, Large-Scale T Cell Immune Epitope Discovery and Mechanisms of T Cell Protection.

NIAID SPF Macaque Breeding Colonies

For the published request for proposals, check the April 5, 2023 solicitation, NIAID SPF Macaque Breeding Colonies.

Immune Mechanisms at the Maternal-Fetal Interface

Request for Applications—proposed FY 2024 initiative

Contact:
Mercy PrabhuDas
mprabhudas@niaid.nih.gov

Objective: The objective is to determine the roles and interactions of immune cells at the maternal-fetal interface and to elucidate the effects and mechanisms by which pathogenic infection, vaccination, or environmental perturbations during pregnancy impact these cells and the developing fetal immune system.

Description: The induction and maintenance of tolerance throughout pregnancy involves multiple immunoregulatory cell types, including those that reside in the decidua, are recruited to the placenta, or proliferate locally in the decidua. Cell surface receptors and secreted molecules work together to orchestrate tolerogenic mechanisms. Early inflammatory events during gestation are counterbalanced by tolerogenic events that are subsequently characterized by pro-inflammatory mechanisms at the induction of parturition. This program will build on the foundation that was established under the first initiative in 2019. Many questions remain to be answered, such as determining healthy uterine immunologic changes and changes at the maternal-fetal interface that contribute to recurrent implantation failure and recurrent pregnancy loss; elucidating the differences in extracellular vesicle communication in normal and pathological pregnancies; and defining the impact of chronologic shifts across gestation. Systematic investigation of the immunological changes will allow the construction of the immune landscape during pregnancy. Moreover, there is a need for models and other tools that reflect the maternal-fetal interface and approximate the intrauterine environment during early pregnancy.

Examples of studies that NIAID will support include those addressing mechanisms of induction, activation, and regulation of leukocyte responses and maintenance of homeostasis at the maternal-fetal interface; delineating the effect of infection and/or vaccination on immune regulatory mechanisms and architecture/function at the maternal-fetal interface and on the developing fetal immune system; and defining placental mechanisms that enhance immunity and those that suppress to allow tolerance. The development of key technologies and resources may be included as part of the research project, including novel methods and pipelines to efficiently integrate ‘omics’ data within the maternal-placental-fetal triad; engineered ex vivo systems that define and reflect the maternal-fetal interface; and animal models to study immune components at the maternal-fetal interface. Investigators awarded under this program are expected to attend annual program review meetings at NIH.