NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The National Institutes of Health has earmarked $2.5 million in fiscal 2018 to fund research projects that use omics technologies to investigate the targets and pathways contributing to the biology of Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (ADRDs).
Projects funded by the NIH will take advantage of molecular platforms that enable large-scale, robust, and reproducible analysis of transcriptional, epigenomic, proteomic, and metabolomic states, the agency said. "Successful application of these platforms requires the use of human brain autopsy tissue, biofluid, or induced pluripotent stem cell resources with extensive pathological, clinical, and genetic data available for sharing with the broad research community."
Studies of interest to the NIH include investigating cellular pathways using single-cell RNA sequence, methylome, epigenomic, proteomic, and/or metabolomic analyses of human brain tissue; proteomic analyses using state-of-the-art platforms for large-scale analysis of global or targeted proteomic profiles from cerebrospinal fluid and other biofluids; and whole-transcriptome RNA sequence analyses of biofluid-derived RNA samples.
The NIH said it is particularly interested in single-cell omic approaches currently utilized in the BRAIN Initiative to study ADRD human brain tissue in order to help define unique cell type markers and unveil the regulatory code that controls cell type formation, maintenance, and transition in health and disease.
Studies not appropriate for this funding opportunity include large-scale whole-genome or whole-exome sequencing of biosamples, the use of animal models for target and pathway identification, and early-stage technology development.
The NIH expects to fund two to three projects, corresponding to $2.5 million in total costs for fiscal 2018. Future year amounts will depend on annual appropriations. Additional details can be found here.