DoD Lupus, Impact Award | W81XWH 18 LRP IA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 18 LRP IA

The DoD Lupus Research Program (LRP) Impact Award (Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-18-LRP-IA) is a FY2018 Department of Defense grant/cooperative agreement opportunity administered through the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) to fund lupus research projects with the potential to produce major, field-shifting advances. The program is designed to support a broad range of scientific and clinically oriented lupus studies, as long as the work directly targets important lupus-related problems and is positioned to deliver a clear, meaningful impact on how lupus is understood, prevented, diagnosed, or managed. While the opportunity welcomes ambitious ideas, applicants are expected to ground their work in a strong scientific foundation, including a well-formulated, testable hypothesis supported by sound reasoning and/or a critical analysis of existing literature. Preliminary data are encouraged but not framed as strictly required, reflecting the program's openness to innovative, higher-risk concepts when the rationale is compelling.

A central emphasis of this award is impact: proposals must address an area of paramount importance to lupus and explain, in a clear and explicit way, what difference the project will make if successful. The burden is placed on the Principal Investigator to articulate why the question matters, what gap it fills, and how the results could move the lupus research landscape forward. The Impact Award is positioned as a high-risk, high-reward mechanism, meaning the DoD is intentionally seeking studies that may be more challenging or unconventional, but that could generate substantial advances rather than incremental progress. In practical terms, reviewers will be looking for a strong case that the proposed outcomes could meaningfully change scientific understanding, open new therapeutic avenues, improve patient stratification, or otherwise reshape an important aspect of lupus research.

The research strategy is expected to show deep knowledge of lupus biology and clinical complexity, with methods that are well-justified and thoughtfully constructed. Projects may propose novel experimental approaches or build upon established methods, but in either case the strategy should reflect critical engagement with the state of the science and demonstrate why the chosen design is the right way to test the hypothesis. Another key requirement is alignment with program priorities: each application must address at least one of the FY18 LRP Focus Areas (which are defined in the full program announcement). This requirement effectively anchors proposals to the DoD's targeted lupus research needs for that fiscal year, so applicants must explicitly connect their aims to one or more of those focus areas rather than relying on general relevance to lupus.

The opportunity also includes several important constraints and administrative details. Clinical trials are not allowed under this program announcement, so projects must be preclinical, translational without trial conduct, mechanistic, observational, or otherwise structured to avoid interventional clinical trial activities as defined by the sponsor. The anticipated total costs for the entire period of performance are capped at $525,000, which means applicants need to scope their work to fit within that ceiling across all years of the project, following the funding restriction details referenced in the announcement. Although the listing shows an "Award Ceiling: 0" in the source fields, the narrative budget cap provided in the description is the operative limit communicated to applicants for planning purposes.

Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning the competition is broadly open to a wide range of applicant organizations, subject to any clarifications in the full text. The award instrument types include both grants and cooperative agreements, indicating that some projects may involve a more collaborative relationship with the government than a standard grant, depending on the specific terms applied. The CFDA number associated with this opportunity is 12.420, and the activity category is science and technology and other research and development. The program anticipated making about five awards. The opportunity was posted on June 8, 2018, with an original closing date of November 7, 2018.

Finally, like many DoD medical research opportunities, the proposed work must be relevant to active duty Service members, Veterans, military beneficiaries, and/or the American public. That relevance statement typically means applicants should connect the lupus problem they are tackling to real-world health needs and explain why the outcomes would matter to these populations, even if the immediate research is laboratory-based. Overall, the FY18 LRP Impact Award is structured to fund well-justified, hypothesis-driven lupus research that is ambitious in potential payoff, aligned to defined program focus areas, and scoped to a mid-sized budget without conducting clinical trials.

• 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 Lupus, Impact 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 08, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 07, 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.

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