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DEPARTMENT OF WAR - CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAMS
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  5. 2026 Reconstructive Transplant Research Program

Reconstructive Transplant

NEWS RELEASE

Released: June 2, 2026

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

The FY26 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding for the RTRP to advance science and clinical practice of vascularized composite allotransplantation, or VCA. As part of the DHA R&D-MRDC, the CDMRP is the program office managing these anticipated FY26 funding opportunities.

The RTRP 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 RTRP 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 RTRP must address one or more of the following focus areas:

  • Improve or optimize VCA immunosuppression
    • Define the unique targets and/or mechanisms of VCA immunogenicity and its regulation
    • Develop novel tolerogenic agents or approaches for VCA immunosuppression
    • Develop less toxic and/or personalized regimens for maintenance immunosuppression
  • Identify and/or validate reliable prognostic or diagnostic biomarkers, methods, or tools for monitoring the specific needs of VCA graft rejection and immunosuppression
    • Identify and/or validate reliable biomarkers for predicting and monitoring acute and chronic VCA rejection in the clinic, i.e., human clinical samples
    • Develop assays, devices or technology for clinical graft monitoring utilizing biomarkers; proposed devices should consider human use factors unique to VCA recipients
    • Identify and/or validate reliable approaches to measuring and monitoring in vivo or clinical immunosuppression levels
  • Advance VCA preservation strategies
    • Develop promising static preservation strategies, active perfusion modalities or other technologies for translation to the clinic
    • Develop mitigation strategies for preservation-mediated injury, including immune activation or ischemia reperfusion injury
  • Develop tools for measuring VCA outcomes including
    • Performance (functional)-based
    • Patient-reported
    • Neurocognitive

Award Mechanism Eligibility Key Mechanism Elements Funding
Concept Award Independent investigators at or above the level of postdoctoral fellow.
  • Supports the exploration of highly innovative new concepts or untested theories that address an important problem relevant to reconstructive transplantation.
  • Applications must address at least one of the FY26 RTRP focus areas.
  • Applications do not allow preliminary data; however, all applications should demonstrate the ability to achieve interpretable results.
  • Applications cannot support clinical trials.
  • Letter of intent required.
  • Maximum period of performance is 18 months
  • Maximum allowable funding is $200,000 for total costs*
*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 RTRP 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 Tuesday, June 2, 2026