The FY20 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding to the Department of Defense Peer Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program (PRORP) to support innovative, high-impact, clinically-relevant research to advance optimal treatment and rehabilitation from musculoskeletal injuries.  As directed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Defense Health Agency J9, Research and Development Directorate manages the Defense Health Program (DHP) Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriation.  The managing agent for the anticipated Program Announcements/Funding Opportunities is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC).

The PRORP is providing the information in this pre-announcement to allow investigators time to plan and develop ideas for submission to the anticipated FY20 funding opportunities.  This pre-announcement should not be construed as an obligation by the Government.  The FY20 PRORP Program Announcements and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanisms will be posted on the Grants.gov website.  Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the Program Announcements are released. 

Applications submitted to the FY20 PRORP must address one or more of the following FY20 Focus Areas:

1. Compartment Syndrome: Novel treatment strategies to improve current diagnoses for compartment syndrome. Alternatives to intracompartmental pressure measurements are encouraged.
2. Limb Stabilization and Protection: Development and/or clinical assessment of rapid limb stabilization and novel wound protectants for severely wounded limbs to enable transport at the point of need.
3. Orthotic Devices: Refinement of high-performance novel orthotic devices designed to enhance whole person performance and decrease pain in patients with limb salvage and impairment.
4. Osseointegration: Identification of best practices to address infection, rejection, and/or failure of percutaneous osseointegrated prosthetic limbs.
5. Retention Strategies: Development, optimization, and/or validation of battlefield-feasible diagnostic capabilities, decision support tools, interventions, and/or rehabilitation strategies that can facilitate retention on duty for common combat-related musculoskeletal injuries.  Biomarker studies are excluded.  The current standard of care must be noted.  The rehabilitation strategy and the standard of care must be specified, as applicable.
   1. Point of Injury: Battlefield-feasible strategies that can be utilized at or near the point of injury to allow an injured Service member to remain on duty and stay on mission without the need for immediate evacuation.
   2. Point of Duty: Strategies that can be utilized along the continuum of care to allow an injured Service member to return to duty without separation from Service.
6. Tissue Regeneration Therapeutics: Development of advanced tissue regeneration therapeutics in nerve, muscle (to include volumetric muscle loss), and/or composite tissue for the restoration of traumatically injured extremities.  Isolated bone or cartilage tissue engineering studies are excluded.
7. Translation of Early Findings: Translation of early research findings in the orthopaedic surgical care topic areas listed below to move the research toward clinical trials and clinical practice.
   1. Soft Tissue Trauma: Strategies to develop and/or identify musculoskeletal extremity soft tissue trauma treatments for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) or shoulder instability only, to optimize return to duty, work, or reintegration.
   2. Fracture-Related Infection: Strategies to decrease the burden of fracture-related infections (may include prevention, early detection, or improved eradication).  Alternatives to systemic and/or local antibiotic delivery are encouraged. 

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) at https://eBRAP.org prior to the pre-application deadline.  All applications must conform to the final Program Announcements and General Application Instructions that will be available for electronic 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 CFDA Number 12.420. 

Submission deadlines are not available until the Program Announcements are released.  For email notification when Program Announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org.  For more information about the PRORP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (https://cdmrp.army.mil).

Additional information, including the award mechanisms, can be found on the CDMRP site.