National Institutes of Health

Description

This NIH Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), supported by funds from the NIH Common Fund (Common Fund) and participating NIH Institute(s) and Center(s), invites applications for the development of human multi-cellular models that can replicate aspects of human organ physiology. Disease pathogenesis, cell-type diversity, genomic complexity, monitoring of cell to cell and cell to matrix interactions and microenvironment regulation are key aspects to be addressed by these model systems. The multi-cellular architecture will represent characteristics of the organ being modeled and will demonstrate reproducible cellular signatures and functional outputs under physiological conditions. It is anticipated that these human cell/tissue models could lead to the development and commercialization of cellular 3D modules that would eventually become part of larger organ systems targeted for rapid and high fidelity safety and efficacy evaluation of candidate therapeutics. Applications unresponsive to this FOA are those developing 3D tissues for transplantation, engineering non-human tissue models or developing simple 3D models that do not go significantly beyond those currently available and in use. Funds from the NIH will be made available through the U18 cooperative agreement award mechanism. These 2 year awards will support studies to develop multi-cellular models representative of the cellular diversity, genomic complexity, cellular architecture and function of the tissues or organs being modeled.Multi-cellular models that reflect disease pathologies including but not limited to cardiomyopathy, endocrinopathies, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatitis, autoimmunity, fibrosis, muscular dystrophies, neuromuscular disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, seizures, pulmonary hypertension and cystic fibrosis are of particular interest. The NIH is collaborating with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enable coordination of separate but parallel efforts in development of in vitro microphysiological systems as they relate to regulatory science.

Who can apply

• Small businesses

Contact

NIH OER Webmaster<br/>FBOWebmaster@OD.NIH.GOV<br/>
FBOWebmaster@OD.NIH.GOV