Dear  colleagues,

Interdisciplinary Partnerships in Environmental Health Sciences
Program Announcement (PA) Number: PAR-05-168
Details at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-05-168.html


Letters of Intent Receipt Date(s): December 11, 2005, 2006, 2007
Application Receipt Date(s): January 11, 2006, 2007, 2008

This initiative is intended to support collaborations between
scientists 
with basic and clinical expertise to advance understanding of the 
etiology, prevention, and treatment of environmentally-induced human 
diseases.

A total of $2,500,000 will be available in each of three years. Eight
to 
ten new R21 and R01 awards are anticipated in each of the three 
years.

The mission of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

(NIEHS) is to promote research that will ultimately reduce the burden
of 
human illness and dysfunction from environmental causes. The research 
supported by the NIEHS addresses this mission through a diverse grants

portfolio consisting of basic in vitro and animal research, 
population-based studies, and a limited number of patient-oriented
studies 
that focus on the understanding, detection, prevention and intervention
of 
environmentally-related disease and disease processes. Recent 
technological advances and a growing appreciation that environmental 
factors contribute to most complex diseases provide unprecedented 
opportunities for developing new research paradigms that bring together

interdisciplinary teams of scientists to move basic environmental
health 
sciences research into clinical and public health practice.

The objective of this initiative is to foster scientific collaboration

between clinical and basic investigators to accelerate the application
of 
basic research results into the clinical setting to improve human
health 
in those areas where environmental factors are known or expected to 
influence the development or progression of human disease. Scientific 
knowledge achieved through this research program is expected to move
the 
field of environmental health sciences into new directions and
approaches 
for the identification, treatment, and prevention of 
environmentally-related diseases or disorders. Through this initiative,

the NIEHS will support both the development of new collaborations
between 
researchers with basic and clinical expertise and the continued efforts
of 
existing collaborations. Both activities must directly support the 
integration of clinical and basic science research.

For the purpose of this solicitation, clinical research is defined as:
(1) 
patient-oriented clinical research conducted with human subjects, or 
research on the causes and consequences of disease in human populations

involving material of human origin (such as tissue or specimens) and
for 
which an investigator or colleague directly interacts with human
subjects 
in an outpatient or inpatient setting to clarify a problem in human 
physiology, pathophysiology or disease, (2) development of new 
clinically-based technologies, therapeutic interventions, or clinical 
trials, (3) epidemiologic and behavioral studies in humans; such
studies 
are appropriate in cases where the primary focus of the study is on a 
specific disease or disorder and the clinical investigator is an
essential 
part of the planning, conduct and analysis of the study.

Basic science research is defined as mechanistic research using 
experimental approaches and may include use of cell lines, in vitro or
in 
vivo models. Basic research may include the development of new tools to

expand the capacity of clinically oriented research.

Applications to this solicitation may be either exploratory in nature,

laying the foundation of long term collaborations or attaining proof of

principle for an innovative collaborative approach, or they may be 
continued development of established collaborations. In either
instance, 
applications must focus on a specific human disease or disorder where 
there is evidence or a strong rationale for the involvement of 
environmental factors in its etiology or phenotypic expression and must

involve research at both the basic and clinical levels.

Among the suggested topics and example research projects listed in the
RFA 
include interdisciplinary approaches to the development of intervention

and prevention strategies to alter the progression of environmentally
induced 
human disease