Grant Opportunities for Week Ending Feb. 15, 2008

National Science Foundation

Nanotechnology Undergraduate Education (NUE) in Engineering - This solicitation aims at introducing nanoscale science, engineering, and technology through a variety of interdisciplinary approaches into undergraduate engineering education. The focus of this year's competition is on nanoscale engineering education with relevance to devices and systems and/or on the societal, ethical, economic and/or environmental issues relevant to nanotechnology. Related funding opportunities are posted on http://www.nsf.gov/nano Research and education projects in nanoscale science and engineering will continue to be supported in the relevant NSF programs and divisions. Full Proposal Deadline: May 14, 2008.


The Biomedical Engineering (BME) program primarily supports fundamental, transformative, and discovery research applied to biological systems. The research projects should: Develop novel ideas integrating engineering and life science principles in solving biomedical problems that serve humanity: 1) Focus on high impact transforming methods and technologies and include models and tools for understanding and control of biological systems; fundamental improvements in deriving information from cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems; new approaches to the design of structures and materials for eventual medical use; new methods of understanding and controlling living systems; information technology relevant to biotechnology including bioinformatics; and new novel methods of reducing health care costs through new technologies. 2) Emphasize the advancement of fundamental engineering knowledge, possibly leading to the development of new methods and technologies. 3) Emphasize novel application of existing technologies to advance fundamental knowledge of both engineering and life sciences. 4) Encourage initial evaluation of discovery-level research in a clinical setting but not supporting clinical trials. 5) Highlight multi-disciplinary nature, integrating engineering and the life sciences. 6) Balance theory, mathematical modeling, and experiment. The long-term impact of the projects can be related to disease diagnosis and/or treatment, improved health care delivery, or product development. Projects submitted to the BME Program must advance both engineering and biomedical sciences. Full Proposal Windows: February 1, 2008 - March 1, 2008 and August 15, 2008 - September 15, 2008.

Biophotonics, Advanced Imaging, and Sensing for Human Health (BISH) - Innovative basic research in photonics, imaging, and sensing that is very fundamental in science and engineering is needed to lay the foundation for new technologies beyond those that are mature and ready for application in medical diagnostics and therapies.

Developing molecularly specific sensing (molecular photonics), imaging, and monitoring systems with high sensitivity and resolution would be an enormous accomplishment with powerful applications to both biology and medicine. Low cost diagnostics will require novel integration of photonics, molecular biology, and material science. Complex biosensors capable of detecting and discriminating among large classes of biomolecules could be important not only to biology and medicine, but also to environmental sensing and homeland security. Full Proposal Windows: February 1, 2008 - March 1, 2008 and August 15, 2008 - September 15, 2008.

The Biotechnology, Biochemical, and Biomass Engineering (BBBE) program deals with problems involved in economic processing and manufacturing of products of economic importance by effectively utilizing renewable resources of biological origin and bioinformatics originating from genomic and proteomic information.

The BBBE program emphasizes basic engineering and biological research that advances the fundamental knowledge base that contributes to a better understanding of biomolecular processes (in vivo, in vitro, and/or ex vivo) and eventually to the development of generic enabling technology and practical application.

Quantitative assessments of bioprocesses and their rates at the levels of gene regulation and expression, signal transduction pathways, posttranslational protein processing, enzymes in reaction systems, metabolic pathways, cells and tissues in cultivation, and biological systems including animal, plant, microbial and insect cells, etc. are considered vital to the successful research projects in the BBBE program. Full Proposal Window: February 1, 2008 - March 1, 2008.


National Institutes of Health

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Career Opportunities in Research (COR) Honors Undergraduate Research Training Grant (T34) - The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) announces its support of the NIMH Career Opportunities in Research (NIMH COR) Honors Undergraduate Research Training Grant (T34) program. The goal of the program is to provide support for pre-baccalaureate research training to help ensure that a diverse and highly trained workforce is available to assume leadership roles related to the Nation’s biomedical, neuroscience, behavioral and clinical research agenda for mental health. The specific objectives are to: (a) increase the number of well-prepared undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds who complete a research training program leading to a research doctorate (Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D. or equivalent) in biomedical, neuroscience, behavioral, or clinical sciences relevant to mental health research; and (b) develop and strengthen the undergraduate research training curricula with relevance to mental health. Application Receipt or Submission Date(s): May 12 annually.


Department of Defense

Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) - The overall goal of the FY08 PCRP is to find and fund innovative, high-impact research relevant to the prevention, detection, diagnosis, and/or treatment of human prostate cancer. The Idea Development Award supports innovative, high-risk/high-gain approaches to prostate cancer research. The PCRP seeks proposals from all areas of basic, preclinical, behavioral, and epidemiological research. The New Investigator Award supports independent PIs in the early stages of their careers. The PCRP seeks PIs who have innovative, high-impact ideas or new technologies applicable to prostate cancer research, prevention, detection, diagnosis, or treatment. The Collaborative Undergraduate HBCU Student Summer Training Program Award supports the training of the next generation of prostate cancer researchers. This award funds new or existing summer prostate cancer training programs for undergraduate students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) at institutions with ongoing prostate cancer research. This award also requires collaboration with faculty advisors from the undergraduate trainees’ home HBCU. The PI’s institution, which may also be an HBCU, must have a record of achievement in prostate cancer research and in research training. A goal of this award is to establish or strengthen collaborations between the PI’s institution and the undergraduate trainees’ HBCU, which will lead to recruitment of talented trainees from the HBCU to the PI’s institutional prostate cancer training program. It is expected that these awards will provide educational and training opportunities for undergraduate HBCU students at an important career decision-making point. The Prostate Cancer Training Award supports training opportunities focused on prostate cancer research or patient care for individuals in the early stages of their careers. The focus of these awards is on the PI, the mentor, and the training program and environment. These awards primarily provide salary support for the PI and require the active involvement of a mentor who is an established prostate cancer researcher, as evidenced by a demonstrated record of funding and publications in prostate cancer research. All Prostate Cancer Training Award proposals are to be written with appropriate direction from the mentor and signed by the trainee as the PI and author of the proposal. PIs may apply for predoctoral and postdoctoral traineeships through this award mechanism. Pre-application Submission Deadline: 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, May 22, 2008. Proposal Submission Deadline: 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, June 12, 2008.

OVARIAN CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM (OCRP) - The overall goal of the FY08 OCRP is to eliminate ovarian cancer by stimulating and supporting high impact research as well as unique partnerships and collaborations in ovarian cancer. The OCRP Idea Development Award supports high impact, innovative research that will drive the field forward. NEW FOR FY08 – This award seeks proposals from all areas of ovarian cancer research. However, for FY08, this award encourages proposals that address critical needs of the ovarian cancer community in the following areas: • Identification and characterization of early changes associated with ovarian cancer; • Identification and characterization of ovarian cancer stem cells; and, • The contribution of the stroma to the tumor microenvironment in ovarian cancer. Proposals addressing one of these three Areas of Encouragement will be given primary consideration. The key initiative of the Translational Research Partnership Award is to encourage partnerships between clinicians and laboratory scientists that accelerate the movement of promising ideas in ovarian cancer into clinical applications. This award supports the development of translational research collaborations between two independent investigators to address a central problem or question in ovarian cancer in a manner that would be less readily achievable through separate efforts. One partner in the collaboration must be a laboratory scientist and the other must be a clinician, and it should be clear that both have had equal intellectual input into the design of the research project. At least one member of the partnership must have experience either in ovarian cancer research or ovarian cancer patient care. Pre-application Submission Deadline: 5:00 p.m. Eastern time, March 26, 2008. Proposal Submission Deadline: 11:59 p.m. Eastern time, July 2, 2008.

Strategic Technologies: Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 08-10 - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Strategic Technology Office (STO) is soliciting proposals under this BAA for the performance of research, development, design, and testing that directly supports Strategic Technology Office (STO). This includes Space and Near-Space Sensors and Systems; Strategic and Tactical Networks; Information Assurance; Counter Underground Facilities; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Defense; Small Unit Operations; Maritime Operations; and Core Strategic Technologies. BAA Closing Date: February 12, 2009.

Research Interests of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research - The focus of AFOSR is on research areas that offer significant and comprehensive benefits to our national warfighting and peacekeeping capabilities. These areas are organized and managed in three scientific directorates: Aerospace, Chemical and Material Sciences, Physics and Electronics, and Mathematics, Information and Life Sciences. The research activities managed within each directorate are summarized within the BAA. This announcement remains open until superseded. Proposals are reviewed and evaluated as they are received. Proposals may be submitted at any time during the year.

The Microsystems Technology Office’s (MTO) mission is to exploit breakthroughs in materials, devices, circuits, and mathematics to develop beyond leading edge Microsystems components with revolutionary performance and functionality to enable new platform capability for the Department of Defense. To execute this mission, MTO supports revolutionary research in electronics, photonics, MEMS, algorithms, and combined Microsystems technology to deliver new capabilities to sense, communicate, energize, actuate, and process data and information for the war fighter. MTO regularly publishes Broad Agency Announcements requesting responses to specific program topics. This announcement seeks revolutionary research ideas for topics not being addressed by ongoing MTO programs or other published BAA solicitations. This BAA is primarily, but not solely, intended for early stage research that will lead to larger, focused, MTO programs in the future. Abstracts and Proposals due no later than 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time on February 13, 2009.


Environmental Protection Agency

Consequences of Global Change for Water Quality - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD) National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), in cooperation with the EPA Global Change Research Program, announces a competition for projects supporting research into the consequences of climate change for U.S. water quality to support human and aquatic life uses. EPA is interested in the hydrologic and other watershed processes that affect water resources that may be altered by a changing climate. A better national scale understanding of the range of potential consequences of climate change will be useful both for fully accounting for the impacts of climate change and for developing regional adaptive strategies to reduce the risk of harmful impacts. The goal of this solicitation is to assemble modeling systems capable of capturing important linkages between regional climate drivers and terrestrial hydrologic systems and to apply these modeling systems to improve the overall understanding of the sensitivity of key water quality or aquatic ecosystem management targets to the types of climate changes anticipated over the next several decades. In addition to regular awards, this solicitation includes the opportunity for early career projects. Solicitation Closing Date: May 08, 2008, 4:00 pm Eastern Time.


Department of Energy

Carbon Dioxide Capture And Separation Technology: Development For Application To Existing Pulverized Coal-Fired Power Plants - This funding opportunity announcement is specifically focused on developing technologies for CO2 capture and separation that can be retrofitted to existing pulverized coal (PC) power plants. This is driven by the fact that existing coal-fired power plants produce a sizeable portion of current CO2 emissions from all fossil-fuel-based sources, and that only about 6 GW of the existing coal-fired electricity generating fleet is projected to retire by 20302. Therefore, it is possible that future climate change regulations could target a reduction in CO2 emissions from the existing fleet of coal boilers. Also, at this time there are not cost effective technologies available for capturing CO2 from PC-based power plants. It is anticipated that the technologies sought under this funding opportunity would also have application to new PC plants as well. Applications are sought for laboratory, bench-scale, and pilot-scale research and development (R&D) of advanced CO2 capture technologies. The overall technical and cost goal of this funding opportunity is the development of advanced CO2 capture and separation technologies that can achieve at least 90% CO2 removal (captured CO2 must represent at least 90% of the carbon in the fuel fed to the power plant) at no more than a 20% increase in cost of energy services. The cost component includes not only the costs associated with CO2 capture, regeneration, and compression, but also CO2 transportation, storage, and monitoring costs. Carbon dioxide capture systems can be divided into three general categories: post-combustion, precombustion, and oxy-combustion (including chemical looping). Since this funding opportunity is focusing on PC-fired power plants, only proposals in the areas of post-combustion and oxy-combustion CO2 capture are sought. Pre-combustion CO2 capture systems are not sought under this announcement. All applications must include a block flow diagram that shows how the proposed capture concept will be integrated into a pulverized coal power plant. Specifically, applications are sought in the following Areas of Interest: Post-Combustion Capture - • Area of Interest 1: Membranes; • Area of Interest 2: Solvents; and • Area of Interest 3: Solid Sorbents. Oxy-combustion - • Area of Interest 4: Oxy-combustion System Development; • Area of Interest 5: Flue Gas Purification; and, • Area of Interest 6: Oxy-combustion Boiler Development. Chemical Looping - • Area of Interest 7: Chemical Looping Combustion. Application Due Date: March 20, 2008 at 8:00:00 PM Eastern Time.

Research Opportunities at Rare Isotope Beam Facilities – The mission of the NP program is to enable fundamental research in nuclear physics that will advance our knowledge of the nature of matter and energy, and develop the needed technologies and workforce. While the U.S. is planning for a national facility for rare isotope beams (FRIB) in the latter part of the next decade, it is crucial for U.S. scientists to maintain leadership in the field. To that end, the Office of Nuclear Physics intends to provide funding for the U.S. nuclear physics research community to play a prominent role in developing outstanding research opportunities in nuclear structure and dynamics, nuclear astrophysics, and tests of fundamental interactions and symmetries at leading RIB facilities currently operating, being upgraded or being constructed around the world. The capabilities at these facilities will provide unique opportunities for U.S. nuclear physics researchers to stay engaged at the forefront of the field, both scientifically and technologically, including opportunities for research collaboration, accelerator research and development activities, and fabrication of accelerator components or scientific instrumentation. The Office of Nuclear Physics envisions multi-year funding for one or more proposals with relevance for the planned U.S. RIB facility. PREAPPLICATION DUE DATE: June 2, 2008, 8 PM Eastern Time (REQUIRED). APPLICATION DUE DATE: November 10, 2008, 8 PM Eastern Time.


News

Remarkable New Clothing May Someday Power Your iPod® - Nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing a shirt that harvests energy from the wearer's physical motion and converts it into electricity for powering small electronic devices worn by soldiers in the field, hikers and other users. The research, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and described in the Feb. 14 issue of Nature, details how pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires generate electricity in response to applied mechanical stress. Known as "the piezoelectric effect," the resulting current flow from many fiber pairs woven into a shirt or jacket could allow the wearer's body movement to power a range of portable electronic devices.



This posting is excerpted from the weekly "Grant Opportunities" e-mail distributed by the Division of Science and Research, West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission. Contact Dr. Jan Taylor to receive the weekly e-mail.