RFA-AI-18-001 – Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD) (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

Slots:                                                     1             

Internal Deadline:                           Contact the Office of Research if interested.

LOI:                                                        May 28, 2018                     

External Deadline:                          June 28, 2018, by 5:00 PM local time

Award Information:                        Type:  Cooperative Agreement

Estimated Number of Awards: 1-2

Anticipated Amount: $34 million total

Submission Process:                     PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Office of Research Application Portal: https://app.wizehive.com/webform/USCgrants

Materials to submit:

• Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
• CV – (5 pages maximum)

Link to Award:                                  https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AI-18-001.html

Who May Serve as PI:                    Any individual(s) with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research as the Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) (PD(s)/PI(s)) is invited to work with his/her organization to develop an application for support. Individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as well as individuals with disabilities are always encouraged to apply for NIH support.

Purpose:

This FOA solicits applications to establish Consortium for HIV Vaccine Development (CHAVD). CHAVDs will support coordinated, multidisciplinary teams of researchers focused on multi-pronged approaches to accelerate HIV vaccine development by iteratively, as well as in parallel, addressing key immunogen design roadblocks to the discovery and development of a safe and effective antibody-mediated preventive HIV vaccine.

The objective of this FOA is to exploit recent progress in vaccine science by establishing new, large research consortia, the Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD), to undertake the next steps in protective antibody-inducing immunogen design research. This objective is envisaged to require parallel and iterative development in pre-clinical and phase I clinical studies to answer scientific questions to prepare a rationally designed vaccine for future efficacy trials. Over the 7-year period of award, these new research consortia should apply state-of-the-art technologies and immunologic tools to focus on iterative, rational vaccine design. The CHAVD research should elucidate how to elicit antibody response(s) capable of preventing acquisition of HIV infection. Approaches include, for example:

• Identifying the epitopic specificity and other qualities of antibody responses that can provide protective immunity by (1) inducing durable broad-coverage virus neutralizing antibody responses, (2) inducing durable, broad-coverage antibody responses with other specific, protective antiviral function(s) such as antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), antibody-dependent cell-mediated virus inhibition (ADCVI), antibody-mediated phagocytosis, etc., that may have contributed to efficacy in RV144, or (3) both (1) and (2)
• Studying envelope isolates, constructs, modifications, fragments, combinations and sequences to induce broadly protective antibody coverage.
• Exploring vectors/adjuvants/delivery technologies that facilitate the induction of different qualities and specificities of durably protective antibody responses.
• Performing proof-of-concept active and passive protection studies in nonhuman primates or other relevant animal models.
• Designing, performing GMP manufacturing process development, and manufacturing candidate immunogen constructs for iterative phase I clinical studies.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for updates and other announcements.