TRANSCEND Grant Opportunities

Learn about TRANSCEND grant opportunities.

Fall 2024 RFA

The Translational Science Engaging North Dakota (TRANSCEND) Health Research Core is requesting applications for Pilot Projects Grant Awards.The Pilot Projects Grant is intended to provide support to allow a research team to pursue a novel hypothesis. We anticipate supporting 4-5 new Pilot Projects awards at an amount of $75,000 total costs (direct + indirect) for one year with an anticipated start date of April 1, 2025. Applications should focus on clinical and translational research. Preclinical studies will only be considered if there is a clear plan to progress to clinical research.

Pilot Projects RFA

Timeline

• Letter of Intent due September 6, 2024
• Full initial application due November 8, 2024
• Awards expected to be announced March 31, 2025

Grant Eligibility FAQs

As a prospective applicant, some questions commonly arise: What sort of research is eligible? Must I be (or have) a clinician partner? If I am a clinician, do I need a basic science or epidemiologic partner? See answers to such questions below:

What sort of research is eligible?

First, per NIH guidelines, Clinical and Translational Research Centers like TRANSCEND are intended to grow the pool of investigators capable of conducting C&T research. So, what qualifies as Clinical and what is Translational research?

The simple answer is that clinical research is research that involves individual persons and is designed to answer some questions about health, including health prevention. The short answer is:

The current NIH definition of clinical research is human subjects research that is:

1. Patient-oriented research. Research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin, such as tissues, specimens, and cognitive phenomena) for which an investigator (or colleague) directly interacts with human subjects. Excluded from this definition are in vitro studies that use human tissues that cannot be linked to a living individual. This definition includes (a) mechanisms of human disease, (b) therapeutic interventions, (c) clinical trials, or (d) development of new technologies.
2. Epidemiologic and behavioral studies.
3. Outcomes research and health services research.

Thus, research that is based, for example, exclusively on cell lines does not qualify as clinical research. However, research that, for example, uses human cells grafted onto animals (xenografts), probably would qualify. The key terms are “patient (or subject) oriented.”

With respect to Translational Research, a useful definition, also from NIH, is this:

Translation is the process of turning observations in the laboratory, clinic and community into interventions that improve the health of individuals and the public — from diagnostics and therapeutics to medical procedures and behavioral changes.

This definition can cover a large variety of studies/interventions. For example, imagine that clinicians in Specialty X find that patient compliance with medication Z is poor. An intervention designed to improve medication compliance (e.g., via reminders, incentives) would be translational research. The subjects need not be “patients”, e.g., interventions targeted at healthy individuals, such as suicide prevention, or methods to promote cancer screening, etc. are translational.

Must I be (or have) a clinician partner?

No. This is not an explicit criterion for eligibility, as it is conceivable that some research would qualify without a clinician partner (e.g., patient-oriented research that involves patient material of human origin that has already been collected). However, in practice, non-clinicians would likely need a clinician colleague to assist is some way (see Point 1 on the NIH definition of clinical research) to get access to patients.

If I am a clinician, do I need a basic science or epidemiologic partner?

Not necessarily. The basic requirement(s) is that the Principal Investigator and/or team have the skill necessary to answer the C&T question that they pose. Often a clinician may benefit from the skills of non-clinician partners, and this is one of the reasons why the TRANSCEND portal exists: to facilitate partnerships. The TRANSCEND Navigator also functions to help clinicians and non-clinicians form partnerships.

Let us know how we can help!

Questions can be directed to the TRANSCEND Navigator, Jamie (Scholl) Bushman (Jamie.Scholl@USD.edu), or the Health Research Core Coordinator, Savannah Macias-Daugherty (Savannah.M.Daugherty@UND.edu).