BRAIN Initiative: Production and distribution facilities for brain cell type-specific access reagents (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), through the BRAIN Initiative, has released a funding opportunity titled "BRAIN Initiative: Production and distribution facilities for brain cell type-specific access reagents (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)". This initiative seeks to fund Production and Distribution Facilities (PDFs) to scale up and disseminate brain cell type-selective access reagents to neuroscience researchers. These reagents are derived from Reagent Resource for Design and Development (RRDD) projects supported under a separate opportunity (RFA-MH-25-100). The program is intended to accelerate the development of tools for precise access, manipulation, and monitoring of brain cell types across multiple vertebrate species, including human ex vivo tissue and cells, contributing to circuit-level understanding of brain function and dysfunction. The objective of the initiative is to support up to four facilities to perform four key functions: (1) interface with RRDD projects to receive and potentially refine validated reagents; (2) conduct large-scale production of these reagents; (3) widely disseminate them to neuroscience researchers; and (4) coordinate reagent and metadata distribution to the broader research community and relevant data archives. Reagents could include, but are not limited to, viral vectors, nucleic acid constructs, nanoparticles, and transgenic tools designed for cell-type specific brain research. These efforts align with the BRAIN Initiative’s broader goals of enhancing neurotechnology access and fostering collaboration among tool developers and disseminators. The grant provides support for domestic institutions of higher education, nonprofits, for-profit entities, local and state governments, tribal governments, school districts, housing authorities, and other eligible agencies. Foreign organizations are not eligible to apply as the primary institution, though foreign components may be part of a U.S.-based application. All applications must demonstrate their capability to fulfill all four required functions and include a comprehensive milestone and timeline plan. Incomplete or non-compliant applications will not be reviewed. Applicants must submit through Grants.gov or the NIH ASSIST system and complete all necessary registrations, including SAM, eRA Commons, and Grants.gov. The next application due date is October 31, 2025, followed by another on July 1, 2026. A letter of intent is encouraged and should be submitted 30 days before each application deadline. Applications are reviewed on their significance, innovation, approach, investigator qualifications, and environment, along with additional criteria like data sharing and milestone planning. Each project may be funded for up to five years, with total annual funding across all awards anticipated at $2.4 million. While there is no fixed ceiling for individual budgets, proposals must justify requested costs based on actual project needs. Matching funds are not required. The initiative prioritizes scalability, reproducibility, safety, and broad accessibility of the reagents to the neuroscience research community.