Discover Funding Opportunities

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) supports applications to develop and conduct investigator-initiated single site clinical trials including efficacy, comparative effectiveness, pragmatic and/or dissemination and implementation science clinical trials. Trials using innovative designs such as platform trials, adaptive, and Bayesian designs are encouraged. These trials may include ones that test different therapeutic, behavioral, dissemination and implementation science clinical trials and/or prevention strategies. Trials must be relevant to the research mission of the NHLBI and meet the NIH definition of a clinical trial. This NOFO utilizes a bi-phasic, milestone-driven mechanism of award. The objective of the application is to present the scientific rationale for the clinical trial and a comprehensive scientific and operational plan that describes it. The application should address project management, participant recruitment and retention, performance milestones, scientific conduct of the trial, and dissemination of results. The multiple PD/PI model is strongly encouraged but not required. Applicants are encouraged to include a PD/PI with expertise in biostatistics, clinical trial design, and coordination.

SPARK is a SFARI initiative intended to recruit, engage and retain a community of 50,000 individuals with autism, and their family members, in the United States. This research cohort includes children and adults who span the full autism spectrum and individuals of all socio-demographic backgrounds. Through this RFA, SFARI supported additional U.S.-based clinical sites for the purpose of recruiting individuals with ASD and their family members to participate in SPARK. Selected sites received funding on an annual basis and were responsible for recruitment planning, outreach and recruitment, return of results, data entry, and tracking progress over time. SPARK participants contribute medical and behavioral information online, collect and mail in saliva samples for DNA analysis, and have the opportunity to participate in additional research studies through the study's research match program. Individuals who enroll in SPARK have access to both aggregate and individual behavioral results from their participation, and can elect to receive genetic results should a genetic cause of their autism be identified.

The SPARK Research Match Expansion RFA is an effort to engage with and increase research participation by individuals whose genetic ancestries have been undersampled in clinical research. This funding opportunity provides per-person participant incentives (e-gift cards) for participation in projects that utilize SPARK Research Match to recruit participants into new research studies or to broaden participation in ongoing Research Match studies. The program aims to ensure that autism research efforts better reflect the demographics of the United States by prioritizing participation of undersampled groups. SPARK (Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research for Knowledge) is the world's largest research study on autism, and SPARK Research Match is a platform that links researchers with SPARK participants for new studies. This RFA specifically supports research topics that are clearly of interest, impact, and importance to undersampled communities.