Biomarkers of Dietary Intake and Exposure Coordinating Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DK 20 007

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DK 20 007

The Biomarkers of Dietary Intake and Exposure Coordinating Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) funding opportunity (RFA-DK-20-007) is an NIH cooperative agreement intended to support a centralized Data Coordination Center for a larger, multi-site effort focused on improving how dietary intake and exposure are measured using biomarkers. The core purpose is not to run a clinical trial, but to provide the infrastructure, coordination, and data management backbone that allows multiple research teams to generate comparable, high-quality evidence on dietary biomarkers. This Coordinating Center is designed to work hand-in-hand with a companion funding opportunity (RFA-DK-20-005, U2C Clinical Trial Required), which funds the multidisciplinary research teams that will actually discover, develop, and validate biomarkers across a wide range of foods and food groups and then test how well those biomarkers perform compared with traditional dietary assessment tools and other benchmark predictors.

Functionally, this U24 award is about creating a shared hub that keeps a complex biomarker program coherent and scientifically usable across projects, laboratories, and sites. In a program like this, different teams may collect different specimens, use different analytical platforms, and work with different study populations, which can easily lead to inconsistent formats, variable quality control, and results that cannot be compared or combined. The Coordinating Center role is to prevent that by supporting harmonized protocols, consistent data standards, centralized data handling, and cross-study coordination so that biomarker candidates and validation results can be evaluated fairly and efficiently. Because the mechanism is a cooperative agreement, NIH is expected to have substantial involvement, meaning the awardee would not operate in isolation; instead, the center would collaborate closely with NIH program staff and the U2C-funded investigators to align milestones, share data resources, and maintain program-wide consistency.

The scientific context behind the opportunity is the longstanding challenge that self-reported dietary intake (for example, food frequency questionnaires, 24-hour recalls, and food diaries) can be limited by recall bias, misreporting, and measurement error. Biomarkers of dietary intake and exposure can provide more objective indicators of what people consume or are exposed to, but these biomarkers must be rigorously discovered, analytically validated, and biologically validated, and then evaluated against existing assessment methods. The companion U2C projects are responsible for that discovery and validation work, while the Coordinating Center supports the shared data and operational infrastructure needed to compare biomarker performance across populations and study settings, and to make the overall program outputs usable by the broader research community.

Eligibility is broad and includes many common applicant types such as state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments and certain tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations (with or without 501(c)(3) status); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; small businesses; and other eligible entities. The announcement also highlights additional eligible applicants such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, eligible federal agencies, Indian/Native American Tribal Governments other than federally recognized, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it places limits on non-U.S. participation: non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed, which typically means a U.S.-based applicant can include certain types of international collaborations or activities when they are well-justified and compliant with NIH policy.

Administrative details provided in the source indicate it is a discretionary funding opportunity using the cooperative agreement instrument, categorized under Food and Nutrition and Health, with CFDA number 93.847, and administered by the National Institutes of Health. The original closing date listed is October 21, 2020, and the FOA was created on July 2, 2020. An award ceiling and expected number of awards are not specified in the provided text, which suggests applicants would need to consult the full FOA or NIH guidance for budget expectations, project period norms, and program-specific award planning.

Overall, the opportunity is best understood as funding the central organizing and data infrastructure piece of a coordinated national research program on dietary biomarkers. The Coordinating Center is meant to enable the biomarker discovery and validation teams to operate as a unified network by standardizing data practices, ensuring quality and comparability, and supporting efficient, collaborative progress toward reliable biomarkers that can strengthen nutrition research and the assessment of diet-related exposures.

• The National Institutes of Health in the food and nutrition, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Biomarkers of Dietary Intake and Exposure Coordinating Center (U24 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): 93.847.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-07-02.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2020-10-21. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• 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.

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