The goal of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to solicit Initial Analgesic Development R34 applications that propose 2-year exploratory/planning awards that are expected to enable a future application for RFA-NS-21-015 HEAL Initiative: Team Research - for Initial Translational Efforts in Non-addictive Analgesic Development [Small Molecules and Biologics] (U19 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). Thus, the limited scope of aims and approach of these applications are expected to establish a strong research team, feasibility, validity, or other technically qualifying results that support, enable, and/or lay the groundwork for a subsequent Team Research U19 application. These R34 awards will support the building of a research team to collect initial data and recruit additional collaborators. The proposal must include a plan for developing a strong research team, as well as a strategy to collect preliminary data linking putative therapeutic targets to the proposed pain indication and supporting the hypothesis that altering target activity will produce desirable outcomes for the disease.

This is a reissue of RFA-MH-19-147. This FOA supports the development of software to visualize and analyze the data as part of programs of building the informatics infrastructure for the BRAIN Initiative. Other informatics programs include developing data standards that are needed to describe the new experiments that are being created by or used in the BRAIN Initiative ( RFA-MH-19-146 ), and creating the data infrastructures that will house the data from multiple experimental groups ( RFA-MH-19-145 ). Each of the programs is aimed at building an infrastructure that is used by a particular sub-domain of experimentalists rather than building a single all-encompassing informatics infrastructure now. Building the infrastructure one experimental area at a time will ensure that the infrastructure is immediately useful to components of the research community. As our understanding of the brain improves, it may be possible to create linkages between these various sub-domain specific informatics programs. Investigators of the informatics programs should keep that goal in mind and build for the future even though the current efforts are more limited in scope.

This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) encourages the translation of BRAIN Initiative technologies from academic and other non-small business research sectors to the marketplace. Small Business Concerns (SBCs) are encouraged to submit Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant applications that propose to further develop, optimize, validate and scale such technologies for commercial dissemination. Additionally, SBIR and STTR applications supporting the development and commercialization of novel technologies that fit within the mission of the BRAIN Initiative are encouraged.

The purpose of this FOA is to provide support for institutional research training programs in areas relevant to the NINDS mission. These institutional research training programs should produce well-trained neuroscientists who leave the program with the research skills and scientific knowledge to make a significant contribution to neuroscience research. Programs should be designed to enhance the breadth and depth of training in NINDS mission areas by incorporating didactic, research and career development components in the context of a defined scientific theme. Programs may support basic, clinical and/or translational research. Critical components of programs supported by this FOA include mechanisms to ensure a thorough understanding of experimental design, strong statistics and analytical skills, and skills for communicating science, both orally and in writing, to a wide variety of audiences. Regardless of theme, programs should provide opportunities and activities that will foster the development of quantitative literacy and the application of quantitative approaches to the trainees' research. NINDS institutional training programs are intended to be 1-2 years in duration and support training of one or more of the following groups: dissertation stage predoctoral students in their 3rd and/or 4th year of graduate school, postdoctoral fellows and fellowship-stage clinicians. (NINDS does not support first or second year graduate students under this PAR).