DoD Peer Reviewed Alzheimer’s Research Partnership Award | W81XWH 18 PRARP RPA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 18 PRARP RPA

The DoD Peer Reviewed Alzheimer's Research Partnership Award (PRARP RPA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-18-PRARP-RPA) is a Department of Defense research grant/cooperative agreement designed to fund tightly integrated collaborations that tackle questions at the intersection of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease or Alzheimer's disease related dementias (AD/ADRD). The core purpose is to support research that genuinely requires a partnership to succeed, meaning the work would be difficult or impossible to accomplish through separate, parallel projects. While the program supports basic research, it also welcomes preclinical studies, with an emphasis on generating impact that can ultimately benefit military Service members, Veterans, and civilian populations.

A defining feature of this opportunity is its required team structure. Each application must be built around at least two investigators who jointly design one unified research project, with clear evidence that each partner contributed equally to the intellectual development of the approach. One partner may serve as the Principal Investigator (PI) while the other(s) are listed as Co-PI(s). Applicants can come from any discipline, but the named PI must be at or above the Assistant Professor level (or equivalent). The proposal is expected to show that the team collectively has strong experience in both TBI and AD/ADRD, reinforcing the program's goal of bridging fields that are often studied separately. Multi-institutional collaborations are encouraged, though not mandatory, as long as the partnership is essential and the division of expertise is credible.

Because the award is explicitly intended to catalyze real collaboration, applications must include a formal Collaboration Statement and present a practical, detailed plan for how the partners will work together throughout the project. That plan needs to cover routine communication methods, how decisions will be made, how resources and responsibilities will be allocated, how progress and results will be coordinated, and how data will be shared among investigators and participating organizations. If the collaboration spans multiple institutions, the application must also include an intellectual property plan to address potential ownership and material transfer issues and to reduce institutional barriers that could undermine cooperation or slow progress.

The program expects proposed research to accelerate advances aligned with the PRARP mission and move the field closer to clinical applications, even when the proposed work is basic or preclinical. To keep projects grounded and feasible, preliminary data are required. These supporting data can come from laboratory discoveries, clinical observations, or population-based studies, but they must make a convincing case that the central hypothesis and research approach are workable within the project period.

In terms of funding and timeline, the anticipated total costs for the full period of performance may not exceed $1.3 million, and the maximum project length is 3 years. The opportunity anticipated making about three awards. While the listing shows an "Award Ceiling" value of 0 in the source fields, the narrative guidance clearly states the practical cap as $1.3 million in total costs over the full performance period.

Scientifically, proposals must address at least one of the program's FY18 "Overarching Challenges," which reflect gaps the DoD wants to close in understanding and managing the relationship between TBI and later AD/ADRD. These challenges include limited research resources and limited clinical studies on how TBI relates to subsequent dementia risk; the need for improved diagnostic technologies, tests, biomarkers, or devices that can detect or predict progression toward AD/ADRD following TBI; and the need for quality-of-life and caregiver-focused tools or interventions for people living with overlapping symptoms or deficits from TBI and AD/ADRD. Another emphasized challenge area is epidemiology, including better population-level research and identification of risk factors that may predispose individuals to AD/ADRD after TBI.

Alongside the challenges, the program identifies several "Focus Areas" that applicants are encouraged to align with, although research outside these areas can still be considered if the applicant provides a strong rationale. The focus areas include: mechanisms of pathogenesis (for example, traumatic axonal injury, neuroinflammation, immune regulation, tau biology/pathology, vascular contributions, and omics-based approaches); biomarker development (fluid, imaging, physiological, and omics-based strategies to diagnose, prognose, or characterize neurological changes and risk); quality-of-life research aimed at alleviating or characterizing shared symptoms and deficits (including management of comorbidities and modifiable risk factors like sleep apnea or obesity, cognitive training, wellness and behavioral interventions); caregiver support research (training, home-based support, behavioral and relationship interventions); epidemiological research on incidence and distribution; novel target identification through non-human basic research that leads directly to new therapeutic targets; and nonpharmacological interventions to improve quality of life or caregiving.

A key boundary in this opportunity is the program's stance on treatment studies: pharmacological interventions are specifically discouraged. In this context, a pharmacological intervention is defined as clinical research that requires investigational or FDA-approved drugs or medicines. As a result, applicants are steered toward mechanistic studies, biomarker and diagnostic development, epidemiology, and non-drug interventions that can be translated into practical benefits for patients and caregivers affected by the long-term consequences of TBI and the risk or progression of AD/ADRD.

• 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 Research Partnership 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 3 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 RPA

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