Single Source for continuation of the Human Pancreas Analysis Program for Type-2 Diabetes (HPAP-T2D) (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DK 25 002

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DK 25 002

This grant opportunity, RFA-DK-25-002, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement (U01) designed as a single-source continuation and expansion of the Human Pancreas Analysis Program (HPAP), specifically extending HPAPs mission to include Type 2 Diabetes (HPAP-T2D). The core idea is to broaden an existing, established human pancreas tissue and data resource so it can systematically support research on pancreata from tissue donors with Type 2 Diabetes and related metabolic disorders, alongside appropriate control donors. The NOFO is explicitly marked "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," so the work is centered on biospecimen acquisition, characterization, and data generation/sharing rather than interventional clinical studies.

The award is intended to support one team of investigators, meaning NIH expects to fund a single coordinated effort rather than multiple independent awards. That team is expected to bring together deep, practical expertise across the full pipeline: identifying and obtaining donor pancreata; managing recovery logistics and associated metadata; processing and preserving pancreatic tissues; applying multimodal analytic methods to characterize the tissues; and building, curating, and managing the resulting data in a way that is useful to the broader research community. Because this is a cooperative agreement, NIH will typically have substantial programmatic involvement compared with a standard research grant, with the awardee working in close coordination with NIH staff on milestones, standards, and resource sharing expectations.

The project has two main required deliverables. First, the funded team must identify, collect, and intensively characterize primary pancreatic tissues from donors with Type 2 Diabetes and related forms of islet dysfunction, and also include age-matched control donors so that comparisons are scientifically meaningful. This implies an emphasis on careful cohort definition, consistent tissue handling, and rich phenotyping and annotation so that downstream users can interpret biological differences in context (for example, differences attributable to age, metabolic status, comorbidities, or other relevant donor variables). Second, the team must analyze, organize, and share all resulting data by using and expanding PANC-DB, the existing open-access database resource associated with HPAP. In practical terms, this means not only generating data, but also ensuring it is standardized, well-documented, findable, and accessible so that outside investigators can reuse it confidently for secondary analyses and hypothesis generation.

Programmatically, HPAP sits within the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN), which NIH created in 2014 to accelerate translational research on human islet biology and diabetes. While HIRNs original emphasis included understanding how human beta cells are lost in Type 1 Diabetes and identifying ways to protect or replace functional beta cell mass, this NOFO signals a focused expansion toward Type 2 Diabetes and related metabolic disease states. The broader value proposition is that high-quality, well-annotated human pancreatic tissue data are hard to obtain, and a centralized, shared resource can reduce duplication, improve reproducibility, and enable studies that would be difficult for any single lab to execute alone.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is categorized as discretionary funding, with an activity focus in health (and listed under the CFDA number 93.847). The listed award ceiling is $2,000,000, and the original closing date was February 28, 2024. Eligibility is limited: foreign (non-U.S.) organizations cannot apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. However, foreign components as defined under the NIH Grants Policy Statement are allowed, meaning a U.S.-based applicant may include certain international elements (such as collaborations or specific activities abroad) if they meet NIHs definition and are appropriately justified and structured within policy. The listing also notes eligible applicants include small businesses, which suggests the competition is open to certain non-academic entities as well, provided they can credibly meet the scientific, operational, and data-sharing demands of running a national-scale tissue and database resource.

Overall, this NOFO is best understood as support for a highly coordinated, resource-building effort: expanding HPAP into Type 2 Diabetes by acquiring and deeply characterizing human pancreatic tissues, then making the resulting multi-omic and associated datasets broadly usable through an expanded PANC-DB platform. The emphasis is on building durable infrastructure and a community resource that can power many downstream studies, rather than funding a narrow, single-hypothesis research project.

• The National Institutes of Health in the food and nutrition, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Single Source for continuation of the Human Pancreas Analysis Program for Type-2 Diabetes (HPAP-T2D) (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.847.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-10-24.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-02-28. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $2,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Small businesses.

Apply for RFA DK 25 002

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