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Lupus

NEWS RELEASE

Released: March 18, 2021

Defense Health Program
Department of Defense Lupus Research Program
Anticipated Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2021 (FY21)

The FY21 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding to the Department of Defense Lupus Research Program (LRP) to support the full spectrum of research projects or ideas that specifically focus on scientific and clinical lupus issues, which, if successfully addressed, have the potential to make a major impact in lupus research. As directed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Defense Health Agency J9, Research and Development Directorate manages the Defense Health Program (DHP) Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriation. The managing agent for the anticipated Program Announcements/Funding Opportunities is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC).

The LRP is providing the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY21 funding opportunities. This pre-announcement should not be construed as an obligation by the Government. The FY21 LRP Program Announcements and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanisms will be posted on the Grants.gov website. Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the Program Announcements are released.

Applications submitted to the FY21 LRP must address one or more of the following focus areas:

  • Understanding how lupus disease heterogeneity impacts risk of disease, disease presentation, clinical course, and outcomes; using a diverse range of research disciplines including, but not limited to, biopsychosocial studies, personalized medicine, variation in treatment studies, health economics, socioeconomic studies, environmental studies, and epidemiological studies.
  • Understanding mechanisms of lupus disease, using mechanistic studies, strategies, and technologies including, but not limited to, informative, rare patients.
  • Determining the pathobiology of end organ injury lupus disease in target human tissues.
  • Improving quality of life for individuals living with lupus including, but not limited to, addressing social determinants of health, access to healthcare resources, outcomes research, patient-reported outcomes, symptom and disease control, comparative effectiveness research, and issues and challenges that, when addressed, make day-to-day living with lupus easier and life more fulfilling.
  • Understanding the underlying genetic and epigenetic components and gene-environment interactions of lupus and how they may relate to clinical disease characteristics, variations, and differences in response to therapies using functional genomic studies.

Applications submitted to the FY21 LRP Transformative Vision Award must address the following Focus Area:

  • Design and implement an intervention including, at the individual and/or healthcare system level, improving quality of life for, but not limited to, access to healthcare resources, outcomes research, symptom and disease control, comparative effectiveness research, and issues and challenges that, when addressed, make day-to-day living with lupus easier and life more fulfilling.

Award Mechanism Eligibility Key Mechanism Elements Funding
Idea Award Investigators at or above the level of postdoctoral fellow (or equivalent).
  • Supports innovative, high-risk/high-reward research that could ultimately lead to a critical discovery or major advancement.
  • Emphasis is on innovation.
  • Clinical trials are not allowed.
  • Preliminary data are not required, but future directions of the work should be included.
  • Maximum funding of $300,000 for total costs (direct plus indirect costs).
  • Maximum period of performance is 2 years.
Impact Award Investigators at or above Assistant Professor (or equivalent).
  • Supports high-risk/high-reward research, which if successfully addressed, has the potential to make a major impact in lupus research.
  • Emphasis is on impact.
  • Clinical trials are not allowed.
  • Preliminary data are encouraged but not required.
  • Maximum funding of $750,000 for total costs (direct plus indirect costs).
  • Maximum period of performance is 4 years.
Transformative Vision Award Investigators at or above Assistant Professor (or equivalent).
  • Supports research that will have an intervention at the individual and/or healthcare system level, which will result in near-term impact on the health-related quality of life of persons living with lupus.
  • Emphasis is on near-term impact to quality of life.
  • Clinical trials are allowed.
  • Animal studies are not allowed.
  • Preliminary data are required.
  • Applications must include at least one lupus consumer advocate as a member of the research team.
  • Partnering Principal Investigator (PI) Option allows one Initiating Investigator and a maximum of two Partnering PIs.
  • Maximum funding of $2.5million for total costs (direct plus indirect costs).
  • Maximum period of performance is 4 years.

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 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 and other USAMRDC extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420.

Submission deadlines are not available until the Program Announcements are released. For email notification when Program Announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org. For more information about the LRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

Point of Contact:

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


Last updated Thursday, May 26, 2022