Accelerating Medicine Partnership in Parkinsons disease (AMP PD) data use and analysis (U01 Clinical trials not allowed) | RFA NS 20 027

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA NS 20 027

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity announcement (FOA) titled "Accelerating Medicine Partnership in Parkinsons disease (AMP PD) data use and analysis" (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-NS-20-027) supports research teams that can use advanced computational methods to integrate and analyze existing AMP PD datasets. The overall goal is to speed progress in Parkinsons disease research by extracting actionable insights from large-scale clinical information combined with genomic and transcriptomic data. Rather than funding new clinical trials, this program is focused on sophisticated secondary use of data already available through AMP PD, with an emphasis on generating results that improve how Parkinsons disease is diagnosed, how its course is predicted, and how its progression is understood at the biological pathway level.

This FOA is structured as a cooperative agreement (U01), meaning awardees should expect substantial scientific involvement from NIH staff compared with a standard grant mechanism. Projects are expected to be strongly collaborative and aligned with program priorities, such as developing and validating computational algorithms, identifying potential biomarkers, and mapping disease-relevant pathways. In practical terms, a competitive application would typically propose clear analytic strategies for multi-modal data integration (for example, combining clinical phenotypes with genetic variation and gene expression profiles), along with rigorous plans for quality control, statistical modeling, reproducibility, and interpretation. The program also explicitly encourages the development of tools, pipelines, and workflows that improve data visualization and make it easier to work across different data modalities, as long as those methods are applied to AMP PD data and help produce biologically or clinically meaningful findings.

The scientific focus areas emphasized by the FOA include discovering algorithms that can support diagnosis or stratify patients, identifying prognostic markers that can predict future outcomes, and characterizing biomarkers and pathways associated with disease progression. This can include approaches like machine learning and other predictive modeling frameworks, integrative genomics methods, network and pathway analyses, and transcriptomic profiling strategies, provided the work is grounded in the AMP PD resource and is geared toward interpretable, validated outputs. Tool-building is not an end in itself here; the expectation is that any new software, visualization capability, or integration workflow is directly used to deliver new insights from the AMP PD datasets and to enable the broader research community to work more effectively with these complex data types.

Eligibility for this opportunity is broad and includes many types of domestic U.S. organizations such as state and local governments, public and private institutions of higher education, independent school districts, special district governments, tribal governments and tribal organizations, public housing authorities, nonprofit organizations (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), and small businesses. The FOA also notes expanded eligibility categories, including Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, faith-based or community-based organizations, and eligible federal agencies. Importantly, non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations) and U.S. territories or possessions are also listed as eligible, which is not always the case for NIH opportunities and signals an interest in attracting specialized global expertise in computational biology and data science.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding and falls under the health activity category, with CFDA number 93.853. The original application closing date listed is March 18, 2020, and the award ceiling is $300,000. The FOA also indicates expected awards but does not provide a specific number in the provided text. Because this is a U01 cooperative agreement and clinical trials are not allowed, proposed work should be framed around data-driven discovery, method development, and computational validation using AMP PD resources rather than interventions in human subjects or prospective clinical testing.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Accelerating Medicine Partnership in Parkinsons disease (AMP PD) data use and analysis (U01 Clinical trials not allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.853.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-01-16.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2020-03-18. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA NS 20 027

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