Weekly Grant Funding Opportunities

Please feel free to send special funding search requests any time (susan_craft@ncbiotech.org).  Please note that beginning July 1, 2013, grant funding requests will be rolled into our regular research and will include a fee of $80/hour. Also, let us know if any of your partners have submitted grant applications to funding announcements posted in the weekly grant alert emails.  We would love to hear of their successes!

Visit NCBiotech’s Funding Gateway page to get more information on funding announcements, links to opportunity search databases and grant development tips.

Announcements

SBTDC is hosting a workshop on SBIR/STTR Programs on June 25:

“There are many differences between these agencies that are important to be familiar with in order to increase your competitiveness. This full-day session will demystify these differences between agencies and allow you to speak one-on-one with individual agency program managers. Also, receive guidance on Phase 1 proposal preparation as well as commercialization plan development, an integral component of the program.”

Please click here for more information and to register for this event.

Grant Opportunities

Deadline: 7/1/2013

Agency: Brain Research Foundation

Program: Scientific Innovations Award Program

Description: The Brain Research Foundation The Brain Research Foundation is accepting Letters of Intent from investigators for creative, exploratory, cutting-edge neuroscience research projects. Through its Scientific Innovations Award program, the foundation will award grants of up to $150,000 over two years to support projects that may be too innovative and speculative for traditional funding sources but still have a high likelihood of producing important findings. Projects should be related to either normal human brain development or specifically identified disease states, including molecular and clinical neuroscience as well as studies of neural, sensory, motor, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional functioning in health and disease.

Award Amount: $150,000.00

Website: thebrf.org/Grants/Scientific+Innovations+Award

Eligibility:  To be eligible, investigators must be a full-time professor or associate professor at an institution in the United States and be working in the area of brain function and development or specific disease states.

Deadline: 7/1/2013

Agency: Food & Drug Administration

Program: In vitro release tests for topical dermatological products (U01)

Description: Developing appropriate methods to determine bioequivalence of topical dermatological products has been a longstanding challenge to FDA. FDA has begun to identify situations when alternatives to clinical endpoint bioequivalence studies are possible. FDA will consider different bioequivalence approaches based on how similar formulations are to each other. If formulations contain the same inactive ingredients in the same amounts, then there is lower risk of in equivalence. For formulations that A differ in composition, FDA is interested in when in vitro release testing can predict that there will be no difference in drug delivery to and across the skin. Objectives: The goal is to identity in vitro release test conditions that are best correlated with in vivo performance. An in vitro release test could be used as part of the bioequivalence evaluation of topical products to evaluate whether a change in inactive ingredients would result in a change in drug delivery to and across the skin.  (See website for detailed description)

Award Amount: $500,000.00

Website: www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=233484

Eligibility:  State, county or city governments; public and private institutes of higher education; school districts; small businesses; nonprofits; Native American tribal organizations; others

Deadline: 7/11/2013

Agency: Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA

Program: Department of Defense/National Defense Education Program/Department of Defense Ordinance Technology Consortium-Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (DoD/NDEP/DOTC-STEM) Professional Development Grant

Description: The DoD is the largest Federal employer of scientists, engineers and technical workers. The demand for a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) highly competent workforce, which meets the DoD’s and defense enterprise needs, depends on preparing the K-12 student population with the skills and knowledge required to pursue STEM studies at the postsecondary level. The National Defense Education Program (NDEP) is part of the DoD STEM education portfolio that includes national-level initiatives that connect to local-level execution of projects, generally located in close proximity to DoD laboratories, bases or other facilities. Projects enable DoD scientists and engineers to provide high-quality, hands-on STEM activities in formal and informal settings to K-12 students. Since its inception, approximately 50 sites have received NDEP K-12 funding for a range of projects at all levels of the K-12 education system. The new funding cycle is expected to have fewer sites, but these will be geographically dispersed (nationwide). The General Accountability Office (GAO) has defined program evaluation as “a systematic study using research methods to collect and analyze data to assess how well a program is working and why” by examining a broad range of information on program performance and its context. The GAO differentiates between four types of evaluation: process evaluation; outcome evaluation; impact evaluation; and cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analyses. (GAO-12-208G) The DoD’s STEM expertise is one of its most valuable assets, creating engagement opportunities for schools, students, teachers and public sector and industry partners with DoD subject matter experts (SMEs) especially in communities adjacent to DoD laboratories and bases. Since 2007, NDEP K-12 has increased the number of DoD facilities that directly engage their local education communities to: 1) build student interest in STEM fields and disciplines and in careers specific to the Department, 2) develop science, engineering and mathematics skills important to the DoD, and 3) fulfill DoD’s future demand for highly skilled STEM professionals. As an example, through after-school learning opportunities, DoD STEM professionals teach key audiences about DoD’s current and future real-world science and technology applications. DoD STEM professionals also serve as role models, mentors, content experts and competition judges. The purpose of this announcement is to obtain training, support, assessment, and evaluation services of new and existing projects sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD) in partnership with local DoD laboratories, STEM education organizations, professional societies, and local education activities. Additionally it will provide DoD and its partners opportunities to enhance existing projects and create new projects supporting program and project level objectives. Program evaluations are used by DoD to determine the extent to which programs are operating efficiently, achieving the intended outcomes, and meeting program objectives. 

Award Amount: Varies

Website: www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=236198

Eligibility:  Proposals may be submitted by all responsible sources from U.S. institutions of higher education and non-profit organizations. 

Deadline: 8/1/2013

Agency: National Institutes of Health

Program: Preclinical Innovation Program

Description:  This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the Preclinical Innovation Program (PIP), issued by NIAID, encourages Research Project Grant (R01) applications in non-vaccine biomedical prevention (nBP) research. The PIP is intended to support high risk/innovative research and development efforts designed to establish and maintain a sustainable pipeline of nBP candidates, drug delivery systems (DDS) and supporting technologies for the prevention of HIV acquisition/transmission. The PIP will support novel and under-explored approaches to strengthen and maintain an innovative pipeline of nBP strategies including microbicides, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (MPT). To accomplish this, the PIP will also support a range of nBP DDS including, but not limited to, pericoital and sustained delivery of single and combination candidates and strategies using gels, films, intravaginal rings (IVR), oral, implant and/or injection delivery methods. The PIP is a replacement program for the Microbicide Innovation Program (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AI-10-011.html) and investigators are urged to read the current FOA closely to identify critical differences between this and previous programs. 

Award Amount: up to $400,000

Website: www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=225493

Eligibility:  Government entitites; colleges and universities; nonprofits; small businesses; school districts; Native American tribal organizations

Deadline: 8/13/2013

Agency: National Science Foundation

Program: Advances in Biological Informatics

Description:  The Advances in Biological Informatics (ABI) program seeks to encourage new approaches to the analysis and dissemination of biological knowledge for the benefit of both the scientific community and the broader public. The ABI program is especially interested in the development of informatics tools and resources that have the potential to advance- or transform- research in biology supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation. The ABI program accepts three major types of proposals: Innovation awards that seek to pioneer new approaches to the application of informatics to biological problems, Development awards that seek to provide robust cyberinfrastructure that will enable transformative biological research, and Sustaining awards that seek to support ongoing operations and maintenance of existing cyberinfrastructure that is critical for continued advancement of priority biological research. 

Award Amount: $14,000,000 total program funding

Website: www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=176153

Eligibility:  Non-profit organizations; independent museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies; universities and colleges.