Defense Health Program: Department of Defense Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program Anticipated Funding Opportunity for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20)

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The FY20 Defense Appropriations Act provides funding to the Department of Defense Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury Research Program (PHTBIRP). PHTBIRP was established by Congress in FY07 in response to the devastating impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health (PH) issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, on deployed Service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The PH/TBIRP mission is to establish, fund, and integrate both individual and multi-agency research efforts that will lead to improved prevention, detection, and treatment of PH issues and TBI.  The vision of the PH/TBIRP is to prevent, mitigate, and treat the effects of traumatic stress and TBI on function, wellness, and overall quality of life for Service members as well as their caregivers and families. 

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 U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) provides execution management support for DHP core research program areas, including the Joint Program Committee 6/Combat Casualty Care Research Program (JPC-6/CCCRP).  This anticipated Program Announcement will be managed and executed by the CDMRP on behalf of the JPC-6/CCCRP.

FY20 PHTBIRP Program Announcement and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanism will be posted on the Grants.gov website.  Pre-application and application deadlines will be available when the Program Announcement is released. 

Unconventionally-acquired Brain Injury Research Award

Investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)

This Program Announcement is intended for extramural applicants only.

Submissions from intramural applicants to this Program Announcement will be rejected.

An intramural investigator can be named as a collaborator on a proposal/application submitted through an extramural organization.  If an investigator at an intramural organization is named as a collaborator on an application submitted through an extramural organization, the application must include a letter from the collaborator’s Commander or Commanding Officer at the intramural organization that authorizes the collaborator’s involvement.

To meet the intent of the award mechanism, proposals/applications mustspecifically address at least one sub-Area within the three Unconventionally-acquired Brain Injury Award Focus Areas. All Focus Areas are toward the identification and assessment of technically-feasible Directed Energy (DE) threat source technologies, particularly high-powered pulsed microwave energy.  Submissions proposing classified research or containing classified references or materials will be withdrawn.

  • Develop and demonstrate computational model systems that support the characterization of injury mechanism (energy propagation, interaction, absorption/loading and physical response of the body) that can cause UBI effects in humans.
    • Develop and demonstrate CAD model of animal (non-human primate) head, skull, vestibular system and central nervous system to support modeling and simulation.
    • Demonstrate UBI-specific models that predicts RF-induced pressure waves from thermoelastic expansion and multi-physics computational model that accurately predicts mechanical response to pulsed RF exposure.
    • Validate predictive accuracy of thermoelastic computational models with head surrogates, cadavers, and/or animal models to refine computational models.
  • Identify and characterize the mechanism of action (the manner of causation producing the pathophysiological response within the body and leading to clinical symptoms) that can cause UBI effects in humans.
    • Develop and characterize highly sensitive and reproducible animal models that are capable of replicating human UBI symptomology and pathologic sequelae; including but not limited to pathological, behavioral, and cognitive impacts of pulsed high powered microwave exposure at varied parameters (e.g., frequencies, pulse widths, intensities, and repetition rates).
    • Determine thresholds, and dose/response characteristics for vasculature, neurons, and other cells/tissues from DE conditions leading to UBI. Establish the causal relationship (etiology) between pulsed high powered microwaves and induced micro-capillary bleeding.
    • Determine mechanisms (etiology) following supra-threshold pulsed high powered microwave exposure (i.e., stress/shear threshold, accumulation of micro-damage, nerve shear, cavitation) in animal models. Characterize the coupling mechanism and the mechanism for potential RF-induced injury to the auditory and vestibular system.
  • Identify and validate UBI-specific biomarkers to support diagnosis and differentiation of UBI including distinction from blast and contact TBI, and to inform useful models for attribution.
    • Identify and characterize endogenous fluid-based biomarkers in animal models.
    • Determine advanced noninvasive imaging biomarker modalities in animal models that detect and quantify tissue damage (e.g. brain, vasculature or nerve) and functional disruption following UBI induction specific to acute, subacute, and chronic UBI presentation.
    • Utilize existing human imaging data to develop UBI-specific imaging biomarkers for use in future human and animal studies.
  • Maximum funding of $1.5M for total costs (direct plus indirect costs)
  • Maximum period of performance is 3 years

For more information on the program or about eligibility, please visit the program page.