NIH - NINDS Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center Without Walls (P20 Clinical Trial Optional)

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites Exploratory Grant (P20) applications for the planning and initiation of collaborative efforts to advance Parkinson's Disease (PD) research. The goal of this program is to formalize new collaborative directions and/or novel interdisciplinary teams to address critical gaps in PD research and to establish a rigorous foundation of research discovery leading directly to an NINDS Morris K. Udall Center of Excellence (P50) application. Through this mechanism, the NINDS seeks to develop synergistic, proof-of-concept research efforts around investigator-defined gaps in PD research and support collaborative teams to develop a research plan, construct an effective administrative organization, create standardized policies/procedures, and gather rigorous preliminary data in support of novel ideas to address urgent needs and emergent issues in PD research. The Exploratory Grant theme and proposed research feasibility projects will inform the etiology, pathogenesis, or treatment of PD; investigations on related synucleinopathies may be included if such directly address the identified PD research gap. Required components of this FOA include an Overall section, an Administrative Core, and three or more research feasibility projects, at least one of which must be led by an early career researcher poised to become an expert in PD research. Synergy among proposed research projects must be evident as well as required for successful completion of the overall aims. To foster the development of innovative research consortia, this solicitation will provide support to formalize new collaborative directions and/or novel interdisciplinary teams only. NINDS funding decisions will focus primarily on scientific merit, i.e., on those applications that are most likely to make innovative contributions to PD research and that demonstrate potential to submit a P50 application at the end of the Exploratory Grant project period.  

See full solicitation here