Funding Opportunity: Understanding Relationships Between the Prenatal Development Period and Initiation of Islet Autoimmunity

Application Due Date: March 15, 2022
Full Grant Proposal Due: June 1, 2022

A goal of the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s (Helmsley) Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Program is to support the discovery and development of interventions to prevent or delay the development of T1D. However, to identify new potential therapeutic approaches, the predisposing factors and environmental triggers that influence pathogenesis must be better understood.

Islet autoantibodies, which are predictive of clinical T1D, have been detected in very young children, indicating early-life events likely contribute to disease initiation. While a number of observational studies are investigating the links between early postnatal exposures and islet autoimmunity, few exist that have focused on the prenatal period of development.  The complexity and resource-intensive nature of such studies has limited the ability to identify and investigate prenatal factors that contribute to initiation of islet autoimmunity in affected individuals. Understanding these factors may lead to new strategies to prevent and/or delay T1D.

To address this knowledge gap, the Helmsley T1D Program seeks to fund studies that aim to understand how the environment experienced during prenatal development influences development of islet autoimmunity during childhood.

For more information, visit here.


Funding Opportunity: Understanding and Therapeutically Emulating Examples Where Individuals Are Naturally Protected From Developing T1D

Application Due Date: March 15, 2022
Full Grant Proposal Due: June 1, 2022

A goal of the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s (Helmsley) Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Program is to support the discovery and development of new therapies that will prevent or delay the development of T1D.

T1D is a complex autoimmune disease that eliminates insulin-producing beta cells from the pancreas. To identify therapies that have the highest likelihood of preventing or delaying it, the research field needs to understand the disease’s predisposing factors, triggers, and elements that affect its pathogenesis. Understanding these early drivers—and, perhaps more compellingly, what can override these early drivers—could lead to new discoveries into therapy targets or guide new intervention strategies to halt the disease.

In T1D, certain groups of individuals are protected from disease. These natural cases of protection include individuals with a certain genetic background and individuals born to a mother with T1D. These “clinical trials run by nature” show that the factors that drive T1D can be overridden. Furthermore, if this natural protection can by better understood, new therapies might be able to emulate their effects.

Despite a potentially high impact for people with T1D, scientific research into protection is challenged by lack of access to human samples, high costs associated with studying human samples, and the large amount of resources needed to establish new cohorts of individuals to collect samples.

To address this challenge, the Helmsley T1D Program seeks to support studies that aim to understand and/or therapeutically emulate natural protection from T1D.

For more information, visit here.


RFA-DK-20-032
Pilot and Feasibility Studies to Facilitate the Use of Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support to Improve Diabetes Care (R34 Clinical Trial Required)

Letter of Intent Due Date(s): May 22, 2021; May 22, 2022; and May 22, 2023
Application Due Date(s): June 22, 2021; June 22, 2022; June 22, 2023

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to test an innovative and pragmatic approach to address barriers to and facilitate greater use of diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) by people living with diabetes mellitus. Research applications should engage key stakeholders in cultivating a practical and sustainable strategy with the potential for dissemination. The pilot trial of the proposed strategy should be designed to generate preliminary data in support of a future, full-scale trial to study broader dissemination and implementation to expand the use of DSMES.

For more information:

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/rfa-dk-20-032.html


Funding Opportunity: 2022 dkNET New Investigator Pilot Program in Bioinformatics

Letter of Intent Due Date: January 28, 2022
Application Due Date: February 28, 2022

Are you an early stage and new investigator seeking to apply computationally-intensive methods to important questions in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Disease (DEMD) research? Check out the dkNET New Investigator Pilot Program in Bioinformatics! These awards will provide funding for preliminary studies that can serve as a foundation for the development of future grant applications in DEMD-focused topic areas.

dkNET Pilot Award applications should focus on applying computational and/or modeling approaches, whether data-driven, mechanism-driven, or integrated, to compelling research problems in diabetes, endocrinology and related metabolic disorders. Consistent with these goals, this program will support projects focused on a wide array of topics including, but not limited to:

  • Metabolic modeling of known and unknown pathway kinetics and compartmentalization in diabetes and/or endocrine or metabolic disorders;
  • Network and systems biology of intra and intercellular regulation and inter-tissue and organ homeostasis focused on etiology, diagnosis, prognosis or responses to treatment, including computational approaches to identify biomarkers capable of tracking disease process or progress;
  • Structural biology/informatics and chemical informatics of endocrine and metabolic pathways in diabetes, endocrinology and related metabolic diseases;
  • AI-assisted image analysis and spatial omics of organs or tissues of relevance to diabetes or metabolic disease;
  • Computational characterization of the normal or abnormal development of involved organs such as the formation of pancreatic islets;
  • ​​Innovative approaches to characterize and understand type 2 diabetes heterogeneity;
  • Clinical informatics including curation, modeling and integration of data from EHR, medical devices, wearables and smartphone apps in diabetes prevention, care and management;
  • Data science approaches to understand, reduce, and prevent diabetes-related health disparities, including new analysis through social networks and structure;
  • The mechanisms for dysregulated glycemia, or diabetes in increased susceptibility or altered course of COVID-19 infection, and for metabolic dysfunction, diabetes, or other endocrine diseases that result from COVID-19 infection.

Of particular interest are projects that can leverage and expand the utility of existing large datasets developed in NIDDK projects and programs. For examples, see the dkNET webpage at NIDDK-specific-repositories. Research designed to address important research questions through the development of new analytical tools, or through novel secondary analyses of existing datasets are encouraged. 

More information: https://dknet.org/about/new-investigator-pilot


NIDDK Workshop “Integrated Physiology of the Exocrine and Endocrine Compartments in Pancreatic Diseases”

March 14-15, 2022
Bethesda, MD

Meeting Objectives

The goal of this 1.5-day workshop will be to gather clinical and basic science investigators who are interested in diseases of the exocrine and/or endocrine pancreas and in achieving an understanding of how the two compartments interact in disease. This workshop will provide an opportunity for investigators in exocrine diseases to come together with those studying islets in diabetes as a means to foster interdisciplinary discussion and identify areas for advancement.

Registration Deadline

March 1, 2022

Abstract Deadline

January 28, 2022

Workshop Information


JDRF is requesting applications for the following three opportunities:


1. Novel Immune Strategies to Enhance Beta Cell Replacement Therapies for T1D

Key Dates

September 27, 2021  – RFA Launch 
October 25, 2021
– LOI Deadline 
November 8, 2021
– Notification of Invitation to Full Proposal 
December 20, 2021
– Full Proposal Submission Deadline 
April 2022
– Response to Applicants 
July 2022
– Earliest Start Date

2. Novel Approaches to Address Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders in Type 1 Diabetes

Key Dates

September 27, 2021  – RFA Launch 
October 27, 2021 – LOI Deadline 
November 3, 2021 – Notification of Invitation to Full Proposal 
December 6, 2021 – Full Proposal Submission Deadline 
April 2022 – Response to Applicants 
June 2022 – Earliest Start Date

3. Clinical Trials to Advance Therapies for Nephropathy and Cardiovascular Disease in Type 1 Diabetes

Key Dates

September 27, 2021  – RFA Launch 
November 8, 2021 – LOI Deadline 
November 22, 2021 – Notification of Invitation to Full Proposal 
January 5, 2022 – Full Proposal Submission Deadline 
May 2022 – Response to Applicants 
August 2022 – Earliest Start Date


Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements to Support Emerging Physician-Scientists to Develop Research Expertise in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Disease

(NOT-DK-21-022)

Release Date: July 19,2021

First Available Due Date: February 3, 2022

Expiration Date: February 4, 2023

Purpose

The supplement is intended to allow candidates to expand their research experience to help them transition beyond their clinical training to the next stage of their research careers as physician-scientists.

The purpose of the NIDDK’s Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases (DDEMD) Administrative Supplement Program is to enable additional clinical perspectives to be brought to on-going research projects within the Division’s mission and to enhance the research expertise of selected physicians.The program will provide supplementary funds to support advanced research opportunities for exceptional emerging physician-scientists (hereafter, “candidates”) holding the MD or equivalent or MD/PhD degrees, and who are early in their research careers.

Administrative supplements must support work within the scope of a currently funded basic and/or clinical DDEMD research project. All applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss potential requests with the NIDDK DDEMD program director of the award for which they wish to submit a supplement application. See https://www.niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/staff-directory/by-office/division-diabetes-endocrinology-metabolic-diseases for DDEMD program director contact information.

Applicants must describe:

  • The commitment of the Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) and other faculty (if applicable) to provide appropriate guidance and supervision of the candidate’s research experience
  • The candidate’s qualifications
  • How the candidate’s involvement in the research project will advance the project and contribute to his/her research expertise

For more information, https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not-dk-21-022.html