RFA-AG-21-024: Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Centers (P30 Clinical Trial Optional)

Slots:                                                     1                             

Internal Deadline:                        Contact the Office of Research if interested.

LOI:                                                        September 29, 2020

External Deadline:                          October 29, 2020, 5pm PT

Award Information:                        Type: Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: NIA intends to commit approximately $5.2 million to fund 5 competing awards in FY21 and approximately $1.3 million to fund 1 competing award in FY22.

Anticipated Amount: Annual direct costs are limited to $950,000. The maximum project period is 5 years.

Submission Process:                     PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Office of Research Application Portal: https://research.usc.edu/usc-grants/.

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-AG-21-024.html

Who May Serve as PI:                    Standard NIH eligibility requirements.

Purpose:

The Claude D. Pepper Older American Independence Centers (OAIC) program was established in honor of the late Representative to establish centers of excellence in research and research education to increase scientific knowledge leading to better ways to maintain or restore independence in older persons. See the NIA OAIC webpage for additional information about the program, application guidance, and answers to frequently asked questions.

The OAIC awards are designed to develop or strengthen awardee institutions’ programs that focus on and sustain progress in a key area of aging research. Applicants should identify an area of focus in which progress could contribute to greater independence for substantial populations of older persons and offer opportunities for education in aging research. This area of focus should be a common theme around which all proposed OAIC activities are organized. NIA’s expectation is that an OAIC, in a given area of focus, will:

• Provide intellectual leadership and innovation;
• Facilitate and develop novel multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research strategies;
• Stimulate incorporation of emerging technologies, methods, and scientific advances into research designs, as appropriate;
• Provide research education for future leaders in geriatric research;
• Stimulate translation between basic and clinical research (e.g., research to develop or test interventions or diagnostic tests based on new findings from basic aging research or other basic research or studies to improve understanding of mechanisms contributing to clinical or functional findings);
• Promote translation of clinical research findings into practice in relevant healthcare settings (see also “Health Services Research as an Area of Focus” below);
• Collaborate substantially with other OAICs on multi-center projects such as integrating data systems, supporting multi-center observational studies, and providing infrastructure to support multi-site clinical trials, including pragmatic trials;
• Interface where possible with the NIA Research Centers Collaborative Network (RCCN), Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research (Clin-STAR) Coordinating Center, and other NIA-funded programs and centers (e.g., Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research (RCMARs), Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging, Edward R. Roybal Centers for Translational Research in the Behavioral and Social Sciences of Aging, Alzheimer’s Disease Centers (ADCs), Nathan Shock Centers);
• Leverage institutional resources, including other NIH-supported programs and centers, to achieve the OAIC’s aims with efficiency; and
• Serve as a source of advice and collaboration to other investigators locally and on a large scale regarding technology, methodology, analysis, or other expertise.

To achieve the objectives listed above, each OAIC should promote a sustained research program in an area of focus through which the Center will accomplish the innovation, leadership, collaboration, and research education functions described above. It is crucial to the design of an OAIC to identify an important research area to be addressed, to specify the goals to be achieved within the five-year OAIC award period, to provide a plan to reach these goals, and to outline a method to evaluate progress toward these goals during the course of the OAIC award. The selection of core activities (see below) should follow from these considerations.

An OAIC may select an area of research focus from a broad range of topics, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Aging–related issues concerning a specific condition contributing to loss of independence in older persons (e.g., role of aging changes in the etiology of the condition; special issues in the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of the condition in old age; complications, disability, or symptoms from the condition found principally in older persons).
• Causes, assessment, prevention, and treatment (including rehabilitation) of a specific type of disability in older persons.
• Causes, prevention, and treatment of geriatric syndromes (e.g., sarcopenia, falls, incontinence) that are related to multiple pathologies and/or disabilities.
• Specific aging-related physiologic changes, other risk factors, and/or interventions (e.g., physical activity) that affect risk for multiple conditions or disabilities in old age.
• Interactions of multiple diseases, disabilities, and interventions (e.g., medications) in older persons and their relationship to risk of morbidity, progression of disability, and efficacy of prevention or treatment strategies.
• Factors contributing to amelioration or delay of multiple deleterious aging changes by modulating risk factors or fundamental aging mechanisms.

In general, each research focus described above has the potential for a wide range of developmental and infrastructural activities that are likely to be interdependent and synergistic. Thus, an OAIC strategy of selecting several key activities that address its area of focus may have unique benefits.

As the level of funding for individual OAICs is unlikely to allow such a set of activities for more than one focus area, applicants are strongly encouraged to select an area in which their strengths allow their OAIC to fulfill NIA’s goal for the OAIC program and to direct their proposed OAIC activities toward that research area, while also ensuring that opportunities exist for collaboration among other OAICs and other NIA programs and centers. The total impact of an OAIC’s activities on progress in the selected field(s) should be a major criterion in selection of the focus area and will be a major criterion in peer review and program evaluation.

To capitalize on important new research opportunities within their institutions, OAICs may also support a limited amount of activity in their cores on topics other than those in their area of focus (see below). Applicants who anticipate providing such support should propose a system for identifying these opportunities and needs and for selecting core activities to address them.

Cognitive and Behavioral/Social Research as an Area of Focus. Cognitive or behavioral/social research should not be the major focus of an OAIC, as these areas are more appropriate for other NIA programs that also use the Center mechanism. However, where appropriate, OAICs are encouraged to support a multidisciplinary approach that includes research in these areas as they relate to the theme or focus of the OAIC.

Health Services Research as an Area of Focus. Research to determine effects of organizational or operational patterns of health practices or services, or the use of new or different types of healthcare providers, is generally appropriate for an OAIC or a component of an OAIC, provided the research is designed to:

• determine health or risk-factor effects relating to outcomes that are primarily clinical or functional in the individuals treated by the intervention or practice and
• obtain new knowledge about the effects of interventions or healthcare practices that clearly specify what will be done for, or by, the individuals treated by these interventions or practices or
• obtain new knowledge about the validity or predictive value of diagnostic or assessment techniques that clearly specify what will be measured in individuals.

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