National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight the urgent need for research on the 2019 novel Coronavirus (COVID-19). NCATS is particularly interested in projects focusing on the use of informatics solutions to diagnose cases and the use of CTSA-supported core resources (e.g., advanced scientific instruments, highly-specialized facilities, and regulatory expertise) to facilitate research on COVID-19 and advance the translation of research findings into diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. NCATS is soliciting applications for Administrative Supplements to UL1, U01, and R21 awards (through PA-18-591), Collaborative Innovation Awards to U01 and R21 awards (through PAR-19-099 and PAR-19-100, respectively), and Competitive Revisions for UL1 awards for each of the non-administrative supplement awards (through PAR-19-337).
Background
Translating biomedical discoveries into clinical applications is essential to improving human health. It is also a complex process with high costs and substantial failure rates. These failures can result in delays of years or decades before improved patient outcomes result from discoveries in biomedical research. Under NCATS’ leadership, the CTSA Program supports a national consortium of medical research institutions that work together to tackle system-wide scientific and operational changes that solve the many outstanding problems limiting the efficiency, effectiveness, and reach of clinical translational research, and thus get more treatments to more patients more quickly across the country. To do that, the program focuses on widely appreciated systematic barriers.
Coronaviruses are a diverse family of viruses that cause a range of disease in humans and animals, and there are currently no approved coronavirus vaccines or therapeutics. In January 2020, a novel coronavirus, COVID-19, was identified as the causative agent of an outbreak of viral pneumonia centered around Wuhan, China. Current information regarding confirmed cases is changing daily and can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html) and through other sources. Transmission characteristics and the associated morbidity and mortality are not completely understood, but there is clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. Many other aspects of the disease are poorly understood. Given this, there is an urgent public health need to better understand the COVID-19.