Innovative Adaptations to Simplify Existing Technologies for Manipulation and Analysis of Glycans (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA RM 18 037

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA RM 18 037

This funding opportunity, RFA-RM-18-037, is an NIH Common Fund cooperative agreement (U01) focused on making glycoscience tools easier to use, cheaper, and more broadly accessible to everyday biomedical research labs. It sits within the Common Fund program called Accelerating Translation of Glycoscience Integration and Accessibility, which is built around a practical goal: help researchers who are not glycoscience specialists study carbohydrates (glycans) and understand how these complex molecules influence health and disease. The emphasis is not on inventing entirely new glycan technologies from scratch, but on taking methods that already exist and reworking them so that they are simpler to operate, easier to interpret, and more readily adoptable in typical lab or computational workflows.

The projects sought under this FOA are specifically about "innovative adaptations" of existing technologies that enable researchers to identify, manipulate, or analyze glycans and their biological binding partners with less friction. That can mean adapting widely used lab instruments, assays, or software so they can be applied to glycoscience for the first time in a straightforward way, or it can mean taking tools that glycoscience specialists already use and redesigning them so non-specialists can use them reliably. The FOA highlights practical approaches like migrating a specialized workflow onto a more common platform, adding automation for sample handling or data collection, building streamlined pipelines for analysis, or improving software so results are easier to interpret without deep domain expertise. In other words, the aim is to reduce the technical barriers that keep glycan analysis from being routine in many biomedical settings.

A key point is how this announcement is positioned relative to a related solicitation, RFA-RM-18-036. That companion FOA focuses on developing new or more effective tools and technologies, meaning a more direct expansion of the technology frontier. By contrast, RFA-RM-18-037 is about simplification and adaptation: improving usability, accessibility, and practicality of technologies that already exist, rather than prioritizing brand-new tool creation. Applicants are expected to propose work that meaningfully lowers the learning curve, cost, or operational complexity that currently limits broader adoption of glycoscience methods.

Mechanistically, this is a cooperative agreement (U01), which typically indicates substantial NIH program involvement compared with a standard research project grant. The activity category is Health, the listed CFDA number is 93.310, and the agency is the National Institutes of Health. The FOA is marked "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," so proposed work should not include clinical trial activities as defined by NIH. The award ceiling listed is $200,000, and the original closing date was October 29, 2018 (with a creation date of August 10, 2018), indicating this is a past-dated opportunity, though the summary still reflects the program intent and structure.

Eligibility is broad across many U.S.-based organization types, including state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; public housing authorities; tribal organizations (including those other than federally recognized governments); nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses. The FOA also explicitly calls out additional eligible applicants such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, faith-based or community-based organizations, Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, tribally controlled colleges and universities, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it draws firm boundaries on foreign involvement: non-U.S. entities (foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components (as defined by NIH policy) are not allowed.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as an NIH effort to democratize glycoscience by turning specialized or hard-to-use glycan technologies into tools that ordinary biomedical labs can adopt with minimal specialized training. The most competitive concepts under this FOA would typically be those that deliver clear usability improvements (simpler workflows, automation, standardized protocols, accessible software, clearer outputs), directly enabling routine analysis of glycans and glycan-binding interactions in broader biomedical research contexts.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Innovative Adaptations to Simplify Existing Technologies for Manipulation and Analysis of Glycans (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): 93.310.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-08-10.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-10-29. (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 $200,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, 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, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA RM 18 037

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