DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE - CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAMS
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NEWS RELEASE

Released: July 15, 2015

Defense Health Program
Department of Defense Epilepsy Research Program
Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15)

The FY15 Defense Appropriations Act provides $7.5 million (M) to the Department of Defense Epilepsy Research Program (ERP) to support innovative, high-impact epilepsy research. As directed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Defense Health Agency, Research, Development, and Acquisition (DHA RDA) Directorate manages and executes the Defense Health Program (DHP) Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriation. The executing agent for the anticipated Program Announcements/Funding Opportunities is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

The ERP is providing the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop applications. FY15 ERP Program Announcements and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanisms are anticipated to be posted on the Grants.gov website in July 2015. Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the Program Announcements are released. This pre-announcement should not be construed as an obligation by the government.

Award Mechanism Eligibility Key Mechanism Elements Funding
Idea Development Award Assistant Professor level or above (or equivalent)
  • The intent of the ERP Idea Development Award (IDA) is to solicit research to understand the magnitude and underlying mechanisms of Post Traumatic Epilepsy (PTE), especially in Service members and Veterans while benefitting the civilian community.

    • Level I:

  • Intended to support investigator-initiated research that may be high-risk and/or high-gain.

    • Level II:

  • Intended to support advanced studies that may be multidisciplinary in nature, and/or have multiple collaborators.

    • Both Funding Levels are seeking applications in the Focus Areas described below:

  • Epidemiology: Epidemiological characterization and identification of risk factors for developing PTE following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) including different variables such as race and ethnicity; age; gender; organic head injury factors; type of insult; latency to epilepsy; and comorbidities.
  • Markers and Mechanisms: Identifying markers or mechanisms (via clinical prospective or preclinical models) that support PTE:
    • Early detection
    • Diagnosis
    • Prognosis
    • Comorbidity
    • Risk stratification

  • Models of PTE: Development of new or better characterization of existing etiologically relevant models for PTE including repetitive TBI.
  • Note: Research under any FY15 Focus Area can be used to compare and contrast psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) with PTE.
  • Applications should provide relevant preliminary data to support the application's research hypothesis (or hypotheses).
  • Preproposal submission is required; application submission is by invitation only

Level I:

  • Funding limit is $500,000 direct costs.
  • Maximum period of performance is 3 years.
  • Indirect costs may be proposed in accordance with the institution's rate agreement.

Level II:

  • Funding limit is $2.2M total costs.
  • Maximum period of performance is 4 years.
  • Indirect costs may be proposed in accordance with the institution's rate agreement.

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) at https://eBRAP.org prior to the pre-application deadline. All applications must conform to the final Program Announcements and General Application Instructions that will be available for electronic downloading during July 2015 from the Grants.gov website. The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov. A listing of all CDMRP funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420.

Applications must be submitted through the federal government's single-entry portal, Grants.gov. Submission deadlines are not available until the Program Announcements are released. Requests for email notification of the Program Announcements release may be sent to help@eBRAP.org. For more information about the ERP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://CDMRP.HEALTH.MIL).

Point of Contact:

CDMRP Public Affairs
301-619-9783
usarmy.detrick.medcom-cdmrp.mbx.cdmrp-public-affairs@mail.mil