Intramural - Extramural Collaboration for Advanced 3-D Tissue Models for Drug Screening (Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
Status: Open
Posted date: September 29, 2025
Opportunity ID: 360666
Opportunity number: RFA-TR-25-016
Opportunity category: Discretionary
Agency name: National Institutes of Health
Agency code: HHS-NIH11
Award floor: $0
Award ceiling: $0
Cost sharing required: No
Funding Instrument Types
- Cooperative Agreement
Category of Funding Activity
- Health
Eligible Applicants
- City or township governments
- County governments
- For-profit organizations other than small businesses
- Independent school districts
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Others
- Private institutions of higher education
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
- Small businesses
- Special district governments
- State governments
Categories (use these for quoted searches)
- agency_code:hhs_nih11
- category_of_funding_activity:health
- cost_sharing_or_matching_requirement:false
- eligible_applicants:city_or_township_governments
- eligible_applicants:county_governments
- eligible_applicants:for_profit_organizations_other_than_small_businesses
- eligible_applicants:independent_school_districts
- eligible_applicants:native_american_tribal_governments_federally_recognized
- eligible_applicants:native_american_tribal_organizations_other_than_federally_recognized_tribal_governments
- eligible_applicants:nonprofits_having_a_501_c_3_status_with_the_irs_other_than_institutions_of_higher_education
- eligible_applicants:nonprofits_that_do_not_have_a_501_c_3_status_with_the_irs_other_than_institutions_of_higher_education
- eligible_applicants:others
- eligible_applicants:private_institutions_of_higher_education
- eligible_applicants:public_and_state_controlled_institutions_of_higher_education
- eligible_applicants:public_housing_authoritiesindian_housing_authorities
- eligible_applicants:small_businesses
- eligible_applicants:special_district_governments
- eligible_applicants:state_governments
- funding_instrument_type:cooperative_agreement
- opportunity_category:discretionary
- status:open
NIH intends to publish a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to solicit applications that will develop, validate and demonstrate the utility of advanced 3-D tissue models for testing the efficacy of various therapeutic modalities, including small molecules and biologics and accelerate the discovery and development of new therapeutics across different diseases.The initiative will develop advanced 3-D drug screening models adaptable to high throughput assays. These non-animal models are expected to mimic structural, biochemical and mechanical properties of tissue that are representative of a drug’s behavior in a body, resulting in improved predictive accuracy. This is an expansion upon the work conducted under previous NOFOs, RFA-TR-17-007, RFA-TR-19-020 and RFA-TR-21-015, that have focused on development of 3-D skin and other tissue models for drug screening. The applicants are required to utilize the 3-D modeling/drug screening expertise and infrastructure available at the NCATS 3-D Bioprinting laboratory. 3-D tissue models in a well-based drug screening platform should be as complex as necessary to achieve physiological/pharmacological relevance, and as simple as possible to make the models robust, reliable and amenable to drug screening. Grant authorities that allow NCATS to forecast this opportunity are as follows: 42 U.S. Code § 287a - Cures Acceleration Network.