DoD Peer Reviewed Alzheimer's New Investigator Research Award | W81XWH 18 PRARP NIRA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 18 PRARP NIRA

The DoD Peer Reviewed Alzheimer’s New Investigator Research Award (FY18 PRARP NIRA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-18-PRARP-NIRA) is a Department of Defense research funding opportunity run through the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) under the Peer Reviewed Alzheimer’s Research Program (PRARP). Its central goal is to jump-start innovative, early-career research that connects traumatic brain injury (TBI) with Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease related dementias (AD/ADRD). The program is framed around a clear public-impact expectation: funded projects should produce knowledge, tools, or approaches that ultimately benefit military personnel, Veterans, and civilians, with particular attention to the long-term neurological consequences that can follow TBI.

This award is designed specifically for new investigators. Eligible applications must name a Principal Investigator who is within three years of their first independent faculty position, and the PI can come from any field or discipline as long as the proposed work fits the program’s TBI and AD/ADRD intent. While the award targets early-career leadership, the application is expected to show that the broader study team has credible experience spanning both TBI research and AD/ADRD research, reflecting the program’s emphasis on cross-domain expertise. Preliminary data are encouraged but not mandatory, and can be supported by the PI’s prior publications, pilot results, or well-established peer-reviewed literature. The program also notes that PI eligibility must be formally verified as part of the application process.

From a funding and schedule standpoint, the opportunity supports projects up to three years in length, with anticipated direct costs for the entire period of performance capped at $225,000. The mechanism is listed as a Grant or Cooperative Agreement under the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category (CFDA 12.420). The posted opportunity anticipated around five awards. Although the listing shows an “Award Ceiling” of 0, the narrative budget guidance indicates the practical cap is the $225,000 direct-cost limit over the full project period, with additional details governed by the program’s funding restrictions section.

A defining feature of the FY18 NIRA is that every application must directly address at least one of the program’s “Overarching Challenges,” which reflect major gaps the DoD wants the research community to tackle at the intersection of TBI and later-life neurodegeneration. These challenges include the lack of research resources that enable investigators to study how TBI relates to subsequent AD/ADRD, a shortage of clinical studies examining this relationship (including work on risk factors that may increase later AD/ADRD vulnerability after TBI), and a strong need for diagnostic technologies, tests, biomarkers, or devices that can detect or help predict progression toward AD/ADRD following TBI. The challenge set also explicitly highlights quality of life needs for people living with symptoms and deficits common to both TBI and AD/ADRD, the need for practical caregiver support innovations, and a lack of epidemiological research that can clarify population-level patterns and risk factors linking TBI to later dementia outcomes.

In addition to an Overarching Challenge, applications are expected to align with at least one “Focus Area,” which functions as a menu of priority scientific and translational directions. These focus areas include mechanistic studies of pathogenesis (for example, diffuse or traumatic axonal injury, neuroinflammation, immune regulation, tau biology and pathology, vascular contributions, and omics-based approaches), as well as biomarker development using fluid-based, imaging-based, physiological, or omics strategies to diagnose, prognose, or characterize neurological changes and risk. Other focus areas move closer to real-world impact, such as quality of life research aimed at alleviating or stabilizing shared symptoms and deficits (including work on comorbidities and modifiable risk factors like sleep apnea and obesity, cognitive training, health and wellness strategies, and behavioral interventions). The program also calls out caregiver support research (training, home-based supports, behavioral and relationship interventions) and epidemiological research on incidence, distribution, and determinants of health among people affected by TBI and subsequent AD/ADRD. For more basic science proposals, the award allows “novel target identification” in non-human studies when it directly leads to new targets that could inform drug or agent development. It also supports nonpharmacological interventions intended to improve quality of life or caregiving outcomes.

A key boundary in the solicitation is its stance on drug-based clinical work. Pharmacological interventions are specifically discouraged, and the opportunity defines a pharmacological intervention as clinical research that requires investigational drugs or FDA-approved medicines. In practical terms, this pushes applicants toward mechanistic discovery, biomarker and device development, epidemiology, and non-drug interventions that can be tested or implemented without relying on medication trials. Overall, the NIRA is meant to give newly independent investigators a focused runway to introduce fresh ideas or new technologies that clarify, predict, or reduce the long-term dementia-related consequences that can follow TBI.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Peer Reviewed Alzheimer's New Investigator Research Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 13, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 04, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 18 PRARP NIRA

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