ICTS

Special Pilot: Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL)

Special Pilot: Helping to End Addiction Long-Term

Special Pilot:

Helping to End Addiction Long-Term



The Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS), in partnership with the School of Medicine (SOM), Department of Medicine, and Department of Anesthesiology is offering a one time $100,000 special piolt to encourage translational research ideas for improving treatments for opioid misuse and addiction. 

 

Purpose:This special call is an invitation to interdisciplinary teams of researchers ready to propose novel approaches of flexible therapies to help opioid use disorder (OUD), new models of care for OUD, and enhance strategies for addiction prevention and treatment, and pain management. Interventions may include, but are not limited to strategies, programs, or policies that: integrate public health and public safety approaches, enhance linkage of those with opioid use disorder to treatment, improve prescribing behavior, address modifiable risk and protective factors related to the co-use of prescription opioids and heroin, involve employers for intervention delivery, or address social determinants and community barriers to effective prevention or recovery.

Rationale: To ensure that UCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative called Helping to End Addiction Long-Term (HEAL), a national effort to address the opioid crisis. The ICTS, SOM, Department of Medicine, and Department of Anesthesiology are offering a funding opportunity to develop an ICTS HOTT (Health-Oriented Translational Team). HOTTs bring together a multidisciplinary group of investigators and provide them with training and resources to help them succeed in a broad array of translational science foci. These teams will receive novel, evidence-based team science curricula that has been shown to improve team processes. The main focus of this HOTT is to collect essential preliminary/feasibility data for translational research focused broadly on addiction prevention and treatment with the ultimate goal of submitting a proposal for extramural funding.

Eligible Projects: Clinical translational science projects, currently not funded and aimed at obtaining preliminary results for a full application for extramural funds, are considered eligible. We encourage applications from interdisciplinary teams or applications with team approach. Emphasis will be placed on innovation and transformative potential of submitted proposals. The content of proposals should demonstrate a clear evolution towards novel, relevant and untested research areas.

A clinical translational science project is defined as any project aimed at accelerating the transition from discoveries arising from laboratory, clinical, or population studies into clinical applications.

 

Helpful Resources:

HEAL Article 

2017 Report - Opioid Addiction in Orange County

Translational Science Spectrum

 

Available Funding:

One seed grant in the amount of $100,000 will be awarded and can be used to establish the research strategy and do proof of principle experiments to demonstrate feasibility of new innovative approaches to this issue.

 

A letter of intent is not required but encouraged to be submitted. In the letter, include the project title and name of investigator and co-investigators. Changes or additions to the names of investigators at time of application submission are acceptable. 

 

All material must include the investigator’s name at the top right corner, and use a font no smaller than 11 pts, with margins no narrower than 0.5 inches.

  1. Abstract body:  A brief description of the research plan limited to 300 words.
  2. Biosketch of PI (NIH new format), CO-PI (if applicable) and co-investigators.
  3. Research plan (5 pages max., plus references): Must include the following:
  4. Specific Aims
  5. Significance
  6. Innovation
  7. Approach
  8. Plans for applying for extramural funding
    1. Implementation Plan  (click link to download form)
    2. Home department letter of support
    3. Budget (itemized, 1 page maximum)
    4. Budget Justification
      1. Funds cannot be used to support faculty salaries, computer purchases, or travel. Other personnel salaries (Project Coordinator, Post-Doc, Graduate Student, Staff Research Assistant, etc) are allowable.
      2. No overhead will be provided for outside institutions
      3. UCI Financial Disclosure (Form 800 and if required Form 810; click link to download form)

Notification Emails for Receipt of Proposal
A notification email indicating the receipt of your protocol will be sent within 24 hours of submission. If you have not received an email, please contact April Bagaporo at 714-456-7524.

Milestones and Monitoring
Before funds are released; a meeting between the awardee, the department sponsor, a department financial analyst, and ICTS staff will review specific milestones to gauge project progression. Additionally, team science services and measures will be provided to assess team science processes and outcomes for evaluation, improvement in quality of initiative, and develop best practices. Continuation of support throughout the entire award period will be contingent upon meeting the project's goals in a timely manner.

Review Process:

  • Meets HEAL project criteria
  • Significance and potential impact of the proposed research
  • Qualifications of the Research Team, including assembly of an inter-disciplinary team with the appropriate expertise in fields
  • Innovative ideas
  • Approach; scientific strength of the research design (please refer to NIH guidelines on scientific rigor and reproducibility http://grants.nih.gov/reproducibility/index.htm)
  • Scientific environment
  • Translational nature of the project
  • Project feasibility within the proposed time frame
  • Likelihood of generating extramural funding

For more information, please contact Dr. Margaret Schneider, Director of Pilot Studies for the ICTS at 949-824-8853 mls@uci.edu or April Bagaporo, ICTS Pilot Grants Manager, at 714-456-7524 abagapor@uci.edu.