Funding Opportunities

Lauren S. Aaronson Frontiers Pilot Program

The Lauren S. Aaronson (LSA) Frontiers Clinical and Translational Research Pilot Program provides grant funding and other support to grow interdisciplinary, investigator-initiated clinical and translational research across a broad range of scientific disciplines. The objective of this pilot program is to support new and innovative ideas that will lead to externally funded awards.

Up to three awards are issued annually for up to $50,000 each. 

LSA Research Priority Areas

Pilot projects are encouraged to focus on translational science, i.e., understanding a scientific or operational principle underlying a step of the translational process with the goal of developing generalizable principles to accelerate translational research.

NCATS definitions:

• Translation: The process of turning observations in the laboratory, clinic and community into interventions that improve the health of individuals and communities – from diagnostics, preventions, and treatments to medical procedures and behavioral changes.
• Translational Research: The endeavor to traverse a particular step of the translational process for a particular target or disease.
• Translational Science: The field of investigation focused on understanding the scientific and operational principles underlying each step of the translational process.

Where translational research focuses on advancing a step of the translational process for a specific target/disease, translational science seeks to develop, demonstrate, and disseminate generalizable innovations and strategies to improve the process of translational research.

Translational science projects seek to 1) identify and understand barriers that delay progress or limit the quality, impact, or equity of translational research (e.g., clinical trial recruitment, data interoperability, implementation, etc.), and 2) develop innovative solutions (e.g., methods, best practices, tools, technologies) to overcome these barriers. Addressing critical barriers will allow subsequent translational research to accelerate the time from discovery to improved human health. The innovative solutions will have broad applicability to multiple research projects, increasing capacity and efficiency.

Applications directly related to one or more of the following areas will be accepted:

• Processes and programs to understand, support and advance translation, e.g., collaborative structures; diverse workforce development; integration of project management; incentives/credit for team science; incentives/credit for health improvements; education/training (scientific and cultural); biomarker qualification process.
• Data-related improvements and tools, e.g., data interoperability; Electronic Health Records for research; data transparency/release.
• Clinical research improvements and tools, e.g., clinical trial networks; clinical outcome criteria
• (e.g., patient-reported outcomes); clinical diagnostic criteria; contemporary clinical trial designs; single Institutional Review Board (IRB) implementation; regulatory science; shortening time of intervention adoption.
• Clinical study recruitment improvements and tools, e.g., identification, recruitment, engagement and/or retention of populations and/or subpopulations in clinical trials and studies.
• Community and stakeholder engagement.
• Methods to better measure impact on health (or lack thereof).

Full Request for Applications

Integrating Special Populations Pilot Award

Integrating Special Populations (ISP) Pilot Program provides grant funding and other support for clinical and translational research across a broad range of scientific disciplines. The objective of this pilot program is to support new and innovative ideas that will lead to externally funded awards. The Frontiers ISP Pilot Award addresses this goal by providing funds to help investigators carry out early-stage research addressing our primary aims 1. Improve health outcomes across the lifespan through multidisciplinary, multi-organizational teams that include patients, caregivers, clinicians, scientists, and other stakeholders and 2. Improve rare disease health outcomes by leveraging input from all stakeholders in study design.

One award is given annually for $25,000.

ISP Research Focus Areas

• Consequences of Maternal-Fetal-Child, and Adolescent disorders and socio-economic disparities on the health of adults and older adults.
• Supporting Transitions of Care from childhood to young adult and adult to older adult.
• Incorporating participants who are older adults or rural residents in drug and other intervention development and testing.
• Addressing unique challenges of rare diseases and improving access to care and other resources for families in rural and underserved communities.

Application Materials

The deadline for letters of intent has passed for 2024. The 2025 RFA will be released in January, 2025. 

ISP Research Plan Template

The Broderick Crawford Community-Research Partnership Awards

Frontiers and the Frontiers Community and Collaboration Core are pleased to announce the availability of the Broderick Crawford Community-Research Partnership Award to support the Development of new academic-community partnerships or to strengthen existing partnerships. These awards will be used to facilitate community-based activities that build trust and strengthen relationships between researchers, patient advocates, community members and/or community-based organizations.

Up to six awards issued annually; each award is up to $2,500. 

About Broderick A. Crawford:

Broderick Crawford was the President and Executive Director of the NBC Community Development Corporation. With over 30 years of experience in health care and community advocacy, Broderick was a national leader for community voice in research. He served on the Recruitment Innovation Center Community Advisory Board and was a Co-Principal Investigator on a large National Institutes of Health funded RADx-UP grant project in 10 Kansas counties. Many of us were fortunate enough to call him a friend and colleague and he more than deserves this award to be named in his honor.

Inter-Institutional Pilot Project Awards

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences’ (NCATS) Clinical & Translational Science Award (CTSA) program seeks to develop and implement innovative solutions that will improve the efficiency, quality, and impact of the process for turning observations in the laboratory, clinic, and community into interventions that improve the health of individuals and communities.

The CTSA program supports a national network of medical research institutions that work together to speed the translation of research discovery into improved patient care. Eight CTSA institutions have joined together to form the Consortium of Rural States (CORES): The University of Utah Health, the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Frontiers Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the University of Kentucky, the Translational Research Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, the University of Iowa, Dartmouth University, and Penn State University.

The purpose of this request for applications (RFA) is to promote multi-institutional collaboration across the CTSA consortium by funding innovative translational science research projects that involve two or more of these seven CTSA institutions. This pilot program is soliciting applications from faculty members at all career levels for translational science pilot projects that will exemplify the CTSA mission of “understanding a scientific or operational principle underlying a step of the translational process with the goal of developing generalizable principles to accelerate translational research.”

CORES Pilot Focus Areas

The CORES Inter‐Institutional Pilot Program will fund translational science projects aiming to identify and overcome barriers to the performance of translational research.

Pilots should articulate a clear translational research barrier(s) and propose an innovative plan to overcome or ameliorate the barrier (i.e., a translational science innovation). The proposed innovations should be broadly generalizable to many different translational research questions, and not specific to any one project or disease. Proposed projects should align with one of the following project scopes:

In accordance with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) strategic plan and its commitment to increasing representation in research, funding emphasis for this RFA will be given to translational science proposals that address one of the following:

• Climate Change and Environmental Health
• Rural Health
• Maternal Health
• Health Equity for Underrepresented Populations
  • For example, pediatric populations, older adults, people with disabilities and/or rare disorders, underrepresented racial/ethnic and/or sexual and gender minorities, rural populations or populations with low socio-economic status. Click here for more details.

Full Request for Applications can be found here. 

Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation Trailblazer Awards

The Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation (IAMI) Trailblazer Award provides grant funding and other support for clinical and translational research across a broad range of scientific disciplines. The objective of this pilot program is to support new and innovative ideas that will lead to externally funded awards. The Frontiers IAMI Trailblazer Award addresses this goal by providing funds to help investigators carry out early-stage project development of novel drugs, devices, and diagnostics. The overall intent is to acquire research results that are disseminated in impactful publications, support successful extramural funding applications, and yield products to be entered into our product development pipeline.

Up to two awards are given annually for up to $25,000 each. 

IAMI Research Focus Areas

Experimental Therapeutics Trials

Eligible research activities include a) clinical validation of a drug target; b) clinical pharmacology (e.g., drug metabolism, bioanalysis, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenomics, allometric scaling); c) clinical proof of concept of a novel therapeutic or a repurposed FDA-approved or abandoned drug. Eligible awardees must have demonstrated proof of principle in validated in vitro and/or in vivo preclinical models.

Drug and Medical Device Development

Eligible research activity includes high throughput screening; generation and optimization of small molecule lead candidates; discovery of macromolecule therapeutics; synthesis of sufficient quantities of active pharmaceutical ingredient required for animal testing; conduct of preclinical safety, pharmacokinetic and proof of principle studies in validated animal models of disease; formulation development (including analytical chemistry support); as well as creation of prototype medical devices as well as necessary device testing.

Biomarker Discovery and Validation

Eligible research activities include a) biospecimen collection; b) patient registry development; c) genetic, genomic, proteomic and metabolomic analysis of patient specimens, and d) analysis of patient specimens using established and investigational methods to discover and validate biomarkers of drug activity.

Entrepreneurship Activities Consistent with IAMI’s Mission

Eligible research activities defining the investment thesis for potential product development opportunities, including unmet medical need, proposed solution, market, competitive landscape, patent position and strategy, summary of existing data, product development and regulatory planning, marketing and licensing strategy, as well as support for obtaining key opinion leader input.

While not required, special consideration will be given to applications which address the CTSA priority of research into the needs of the rare disease community.

Application Materials

The deadline for letters of intent has passed for 2024. The 2025 RFA will be released in December, 2024. 

Previous Application Materials 

Research Plan Template

Request for Applications

Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design Trailblazer Award

The Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD) Trailblazer Award provides grant funding to support statistical, epidemiological, and data science investigations toward novel methods development that will improve clinical and translational research (CTR) inferences. BERD Trailblazer Awards support research projects for methods development for CTR. 

One award is given annually for up to $20,000. 

BERD Research Focus Areas

Frontiers BERD Trailblazer Awards support projects that address methodologies or analyses useful to the study of all diseases, and include academic disciplines such as biostatistics, epidemiology, bioinformatics, data science, and other quantitative areas that impact clinical and translational science.

Application Materials

The deadline for letters of intent has passed for 2024. The 2025 RFA will be released in December 2024. 

Previous Application Materials

Request for Applications

Research Plan Template

External Funding Opportunities

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