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DEPARTMENT OF WAR - CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAMS
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Lupus

NEWS RELEASE

Released: February 11, 2026

Defense Health Agency Research and Development
Medical Research and Development Command
Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs
Lupus Research Program
Anticipated Funding Opportunities for Fiscal Year 2026

The FY26 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding for the LRP to support innovative, high-impact research with clinical relevance to better understand, prevent, diagnose and treat lupus, and improve quality of life for individuals living with lupus. As part of the DHA R&D-MRDC, the CDMRP is the program office managing these anticipated FY26 funding opportunities.

The LRP provides the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY26 funding opportunities. Investigators should not construe this pre-announcement as an obligation or promise by the government. The CDMRP will post FY26 LRP funding opportunity announcements on the Grants.gov website. Once released, the funding opportunity announcements will include pre-application and application deadlines.

Applications submitted to the FY26 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. This focus area applies to the Idea Award and Impact Award only.
  • Understanding the biological mechanisms of lupus disease, including, but not limited to, studies of informative or rare patients. This focus area applies to the Idea Award and Impact Award only.
  • Determining the pathobiology of end organ injury related to lupus disease in target human tissues. This focus area applies to the Idea Award and Impact Award only.
  • Improving quality of life for individuals living with lupus, including, but not limited to, addressing social determinants of health, nutrition, alternative therapies, access to health care 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. This focus area applies to the Idea Award and Impact Award only.
  • Understanding the underlying genetic and epigenetic components and gene-environment interactions of lupus and how they may relate to clinical disease characteristics, variations, disparities and differences in response to therapies using functional genomic studies. This focus area applies to the Idea Award and Impact Award only.
  • Innovative health care delivery models improving outcomes for lupus. This focus area applies to the Impact Award, Transformative Vision Development Award and Transformative Vision Award only.
  • Design and implement an intervention at either the individual and/or health care system level to improve the quality of life for individuals living with lupus. Example interventions include but are not limited to access to health care 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. This focus area applies to the Impact Award, Transformative Vision Development Award and Transformative Vision Award only.

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.
  • Emphasizes innovation.
  • Applications cannot support clinical trials.
  • Applications may include, but do not require, preliminary data.
  • Applications should describe future directions of the work.
  • Maximum funding is $300,000 for total 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.
  • Emphasizes impact.
  • Applications cannot support clinical trials.
  • Applications encourage, but do not require, preliminary data.
  • Maximum funding is $1 million for total costs*
  • Maximum period of performance is 4 years
Transformative Vision Development Award Investigators at or above Assistant Professor, or equivalent.
  • Supports pilot studies that will generate preliminary data and demonstrate feasibility for achieving the aims of a future Transformative Vision Award or equivalent project.
  • Emphasizes research strategy to gain preliminary data and demonstrate feasibility for a future TVA project.
  • Applications cannot support clinical trials.
  • Applications cannot support animal studies.
  • Applications allow, but do not require, preliminary data.
  • Applications must include at least one lupus consumer advocate as a member of the research team.
  • Maximum funding is $250,000 for total costs*
  • Maximum period of performance is 2 years
Transformative Vision Award Investigators at or above Assistant Professor, or equivalent.
  • Supports research that will have an intervention at the individual and/or health care system level and will result in near-term impact on the health-related quality of life of individuals living with lupus.
  • Emphasizes near-term impact on quality of life.
  • Applications can support clinical trials.
  • Applications cannot support animal studies.
  • Applications must include preliminary data.
  • Applications must include at least one lupus consumer advocate as a member of the research team.
  • Partnering Principal Investigator Option allows for one initiating PI and a maximum of two partnering PIs.
  • Maximum funding is $2 million for total costs*
  • Maximum period of performance is 4 years
*Total costs include direct and indirect costs.

Before full application submission, the CDMRP requires submission of a pre-application through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal, eBRAP, prior to the pre-application deadline. All applications must conform to the final funding opportunity announcements available for downloading from Grants.gov. To obtain a listing of all CDMRP funding opportunities on the Grants.gov website, perform a basic search using CFDA number 12.420.

To receive email notifications upon release of funding opportunity announcements, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under "Email Subscriptions" on the eBRAP homepage. For more information about the BCRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website.

Point of Contact:
CDMRP Public Affairs
301-619-7071
dha.detrick.cdmrp.mbx.public-affairs@health.mil


Last updated Wednesday, February 11, 2026