DoD Scleroderma, Translational Research Partnership Award | W81XWH 21 SRP TRPA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 21 SRP TRPA

The DoD Scleroderma Translational Research Partnership Award (FY21 SRP TRPA, Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-21-SRP-TRPA) is a Department of Defense program designed to push promising scleroderma research ideas toward real-world clinical use. The core purpose is translational research that can move beyond discovery and into clinical applications that matter to active-duty Service Members, Veterans, other military health beneficiaries, and the broader public. The mechanism is built around the idea that progress in scleroderma will be faster and more meaningful when clinicians and research scientists work as a tightly integrated team, rather than in parallel, and when clinical needs and patient observations continually shape the laboratory work and vice versa.

A central requirement of this opportunity is a true, synergistic partnership among multiple principal investigators (PIs). Applications must include at least two and no more than three PIs working under one unified project, and at least one PI must be a clinician. Multi-institution collaborations are encouraged, but the partnership must be substantive: it is not enough for one partner to simply provide access to patient samples, tissues, or cohorts. The PIs are expected to co-develop the scientific plan, Project Narrative, and Statement of Work, and to clearly justify why the research question is best solved together rather than through separate independent projects. One PI serves as the Initiating PI and handles most submission administration, while the other PI(s) are Partnering PI(s). If funded, each PI is named on an individual award within their organization, reflecting the distributed, team-based structure of the program.

The research itself must be genuinely translational and should demonstrate a two-way flow of ideas between basic and clinical science instead of a simple "bench to bedside" pipeline. Competitive projects are expected to use clinical insight to guide lab studies, and to use lab findings to inform clinical direction, validation, endpoint development, or readiness for trials. The program explicitly supports a range of translational activities, such as advancing in vitro or animal findings into studies using human samples or cohorts, completing late-stage preclinical work that prepares for clinical trials (including steps like Investigational New Drug enabling activities), and conducting correlative studies linked to ongoing or completed clinical trials, including the development of better clinical trial endpoints. If animal work is proposed, applicants must make a clear case for how it is likely to translate into patient care. Across all approaches, the DoD emphasizes that the work should be more than incremental and should offer a credible path toward meaningful advances in understanding scleroderma causes and progression and/or improving patient care and quality of life.

The announcement also highlights several application features reviewers will look for. Preliminary data are required, but they do not have to come directly from scleroderma studies; they can be drawn from other disease areas or related biology, as long as the applicant makes a convincing case for relevance. Partnership planning is treated as a key scientific element, not an administrative afterthought. Proposals need clear interaction plans covering communication routines, coordination of progress, and data transfer processes. For multi-institution teams, an intellectual and material property plan is also required to prevent institutional barriers from undermining collaboration and to resolve issues around ownership, sharing, and use of data and materials.

Military health relevance is a major program priority and is considered during programmatic review for alignment with the Defense Health Program mission. Applicants are encouraged to connect their work to military needs in concrete ways, such as using military or Veteran cohorts, specimens, or databases; collaborating with DoD or VA investigators; incorporating input from military consultants or specialty leaders; or explaining how the outputs could be used in a dual-use manner that benefits military medicine and civilian care. The program also notes that environmental exposures with potential relevance to Service Members and Veterans may be a meaningful angle when appropriate. Partnerships that include investigators at DoD military treatment facilities or laboratories, as well as VA medical centers and research labs, are explicitly encouraged.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, awards are made as assistance agreements, meaning they may be issued as either grants or cooperative agreements depending on how much substantive involvement the DoD expects to have during performance. If little to no agency involvement is anticipated, the award is more likely to be a grant; if substantial involvement is expected, it may be a cooperative agreement, with the nature of that involvement spelled out in the award. The budget guidance states that anticipated direct costs for the full period of performance may not exceed $750,000. Program leadership expected to allocate about $2.4 million total to fund roughly two awards, with final funding dependent on federal fund availability, application volume, and scientific and programmatic merit. The opportunity was posted May 14, 2021, with an original closing date of August 25, 2021, and awards targeted for issuance no later than September 30, 2022, using FY21 funds available for obligation through September 30, 2027. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open to any type of entity), subject to any additional clarifications in the full announcement, and the administering agency is the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA).

• 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 Scleroderma, Translational 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 May 14, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 25, 2021. (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 2 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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