American Heart Association/Allen Initiative in Brain Health and Cognitive Impairment Deadline

Date: 

Friday, July 6, 2018 (All day)

American Heart Association/Allen Initiative in Brain Health and Cognitive Impairment
OSP Deadline: June 28, 2018
Sponsor Phase I Deadline: July 6, 2018
Award Amount: Applicants should propose a scope of research that could be completed at a minimum level of $15M or larger. Up to 10% may be used for institutional indirect costs. This amount falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.

The purpose of this research initiative is to discover and fund highly-promising teams of investigators who will expand the frontiers of bioscience, pursuing creative, transformative ideas with the potential to move brain health and cognitive impairment science forward. It will fund large-scale integrated research that will identify novel, early, actionable, biological/mechanistic contributors to age-related cognitive impairment. The sponsors will grant a competitive basic science research award(s) of up to $43 million over eight years to one or more highly inspiring and innovative integrated team(s).

The following topics are of particular interest:

  • The neurovascular unit (NVU) in relation to cognitive function
  • Proteostasis in relation to cognitive function
  • Inflammation in vascular and neural systems in relation to aging / cognitive function
  • Role of astrocytes and microglia and their effects on cognitive function
  • DNA repair and epigenetic aging mechanisms in vascular and neural systems.

Applicants are expected to assemble an integrative team that will leverage diverse skills and perspectives to address a compelling selection or combination of the above or equally compelling relevant topics. Because early stage and causal mechanisms are of priority interest, studies focused exclusively on late-stage manifestations (such as the Alzheimer’s Disease pathology of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles) or non-modifiable/non-actionable biomarkers, for example, will be less competitive. Likewise, with a focus on novel discoveries of basic scientific mechanisms at play, large scale randomized trials and population studies will only be competitive if appropriately linked to the mechanistic discoveries. Fellowships and training within the projects are welcome.