The FY23 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding for the Lupus Research Program (LRP) to support the full spectrum of research projects or ideas that specifically focus on scientific and clinical lupus issues which, if successfully addressed, have the potential to make a major impact in lupus research. The managing agent for the anticipated funding opportunities is the CDMRP at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC).

See complete details about these awards

Applications submitted to the FY23 LRP Idea and Impact Awards must address one or more of the following Focus Areas:

• Understanding how lupus disease heterogeneity impacts risk of disease, disease presentation, clinical course, and outcomes using a diverse range of research disciplines including, but not limited to, biopsychosocial studies, personalized medicine, variation in treatment studies, health economics, socioeconomic studies, environmental studies, systems biology, maternal fetal health, and epidemiological studies
• Understanding the biological mechanisms of lupus disease including, but not limited to, studies of informative/rare patients
• Determining the pathobiology of end organ injury related to lupus disease in target human tissues
• Improving quality of life for individuals living with lupus including, but not limited to, addressing social determinants of health, access to health care resources, outcomes research, patient-reported outcomes, symptom and disease control, comparative effectiveness research, maternal fetal health, and issues and challenges that, when addressed, make day-to-day living with lupus easier and life more fulfilling
• Understanding the underlying genetic and epigenetic components and gene-environment interactions of lupus and how they may relate to clinical disease characteristics, variations, disparities, and differences in response to therapies using functional genomic studies
• (Impact Awards only) Innovative health care delivery models improving outcomes for lupus

Applications submitted to the FY23 LRP Transformative Vision Award must address one of the following Focus Areas:

• Innovative health care delivery models improving outcomes for lupus
• Design and implement an intervention either at the individual and/or health care system level to improve the quality of life and mental and behavioral health for individuals living with lupus. Example interventions include, but are not limited to, access to health care resources, outcomes research, symptom and disease control, comparative effectiveness research, and issues and challenges that, when addressed, make day-to-day living with lupus easier and life more fulfilling.

Idea Award        

• Investigators at or above the level of postdoctoral fellow (or equivalent) 
• Supports innovative, high-risk/high-reward research that could ultimately lead to a critical discovery or major advancement.
• Emphasis is on innovation.
• Clinical trials are not allowed.
• Preliminary data is permitted but not required, and future directions of the work should be included.
• Maximum funding of $300,000 for total costs (direct plus indirect costs)
• Maximum period of performance is 2 years

Impact Award   

• Investigators at or above Assistant Professor (or equivalent)         
• Supports high-risk/high-reward research which, if successfully addressed, has the potential to make a major impact in lupus research.
• Emphasis is on impact.
• Clinical trials are not allowed.
• Preliminary data are encouraged but not required.
• Maximum funding of $1.0 million (M) for total costs (direct plus indirect costs)
• Maximum period of performance is 4 years

Transformative Vision Award

• Investigators at or above Assistant Professor (or equivalent)         
• Supports research that will have an intervention at the individual and/or health care system level, which will result in near-term impact on the health-related quality of life of persons living with lupus.
• Emphasis is on near-term impact to quality of life.
• Clinical trials are allowed.
• Animal studies are not allowed.
• Preliminary data are required.
• Applications must include at least one lupus consumer advocate as a member of the research team.
• Partnering Principal Investigator (PI) Option allows one Initiating Investigator and a maximum of two Partnering PIs.
• Maximum funding of $2.5M for total costs (direct plus indirect costs)
• Maximum period of performance is 4 years

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) prior to the pre-application deadline. All applications must conform to the final funding opportunity announcements that will be available for downloading from the Grants.gov website. The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov. A listing of all CDMRP and other USAMRDC extramural funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using Assistance Listing Number (ALN, formerly CFDA) 12.420.

For email notification when announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage. For more information about the LRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://cdmrp.health.mil).