NIH is funding a new program called Research and Research Infrastructure “Grand Opportunities” but referred to as the “GO” grant program. NIH seeks projects that will have a high short-term impact and provide for growth and investment in biomedical research to further develop public health, and healthcare delivery. The $200 million in funding is part of ARRA funds.
So far some of the NIH Institutes suggested “GO” topics include:
- National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI)— looking for novel methods to monitor health disparities in people with chronic diseases, monitor economic effects on health, and to evaluate the results of research in terms of the changes needed in healthcare policy
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB)—supports research on information technology to use to share radiology images across healthcare institutions and vendor systems. A key design feature is for the patient to control the access and sharing of the images. NIBIB will also accept applications for development of point-of-care diagnostic systems particularly for use in underserved settings
- National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)—interested in large scale pilots in health systems to demonstrate the value of automated methods to define health and disease status. The idea is to use information available from biobanks that have been set up for research purposes and then couple this information with EHRs to define the data across diverse cultural, racial/ethnic, gender, age, and socioeconomic backgrounds
The due date for applications is May 27, 2009. For more information on the “GO” program, visit http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-09-004.html or go to www.grants.gov. For more specific information, go through the individual Institutes by visiting http://grants.nih.gov/recovery/ic_go.html.
