Scalable and Systematic Neurobiology of Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Disorder Risk Genes: Data Resource and Administrative Coordination Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA MH 22 110

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA MH 22 110

The opportunity titled "Scalable and Systematic Neurobiology of Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Disorder Risk Genes: Data Resource and Administrative Coordination Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" is an NIH/NIMH cooperative agreement designed to speed up the move from gene discovery to biological understanding in mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions. Over the last several years, large sequencing studies have identified many genes that carry an excess burden of damaging mutations in people with disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. Even with that progress, a major roadblock remains: knowing a gene is statistically associated with disease does not automatically explain what it does in the brain, which cell types it affects, which pathways it disrupts, or how those disruptions show up as measurable changes in neural function. This FOA targets that bottleneck by supporting a dedicated coordination and data resource center that can help make mechanistic follow-up as systematic, scalable, and unbiased as the original gene discovery efforts.

At the core of the broader initiative is a consortium model that will run high-throughput, large-scale experimental assays to probe the molecular, cellular, and physiological effects of hundreds of disease-associated genes in parallel. Rather than the traditional approach where individual labs study one gene at a time using methods that are hard to compare across studies, the initiative emphasizes platforms and workflows that can be applied across many genes and many endpoints in a consistent way. The funding described here specifically focuses on the consortium coordination center (CCC), which functions as the administrative and data backbone for the rest of the consortium. In practical terms, the CCC is expected to keep the consortium aligned, ensure projects can share information efficiently, and make the resulting datasets usable by the broader research community.

A central purpose of the coordination center is harmonization. When multiple sites and platforms generate data across different biological levels (for example, transcriptomic or epigenomic profiles, cellular phenotypes, synaptic or circuit physiology readouts, or organismal behavior), differences in formats, metadata, quality control, and analytic pipelines can make it difficult to combine results into a coherent whole. This FOA envisions the CCC taking responsibility for data and tool harmonization so that outputs from diverse projects can be integrated rather than remaining siloed. That includes developing shared standards for data structure and annotation, promoting consistent quality control expectations, and coordinating approaches for documentation so that external users can interpret the data correctly.

Another major deliverable is an open-source portal intended to unify consortium outputs into a single, accessible resource. This portal is meant to support broad dissemination and reuse, allowing researchers to explore results across genes, assays, and model systems without needing to negotiate one-off data transfers from individual projects. In addition to simply hosting files, a well-designed portal would typically be expected to support search, filtering, visualization, and clear linkage between datasets and the experimental context that produced them. The emphasis on open-source also signals that the software and tooling developed should be shareable and extensible, lowering barriers for other groups to adopt similar standards or build on the platform.

The FOA also highlights the creation of standardized biological resources for the research community. In a high-throughput risk-gene functionalization effort, standard resources might include shared reagents, reference constructs, validated perturbation tools, cell lines, organismal models, or common protocols that enable reproducibility and direct comparison across studies. By coordinating and distributing such resources, the CCC helps ensure that findings are not only generated at scale, but can also be replicated, extended, and applied by outside investigators long after the initial consortium activities.

Programmatically, the initiative is positioned as a bridge to other NIMH efforts, explicitly referencing PsychENCODE and Convergent Neuroscience. The intent is to connect gene-to-function experimentation with existing large-scale resources and frameworks for understanding brain genomics and convergent mechanisms. This matters because the most useful outcomes often come from linking functional assay results to complementary datasets, such as human brain transcriptomic reference maps, regulatory element annotations, or integrative models that connect molecular changes to circuits and behavior. A coordination center is well-suited to manage those linkages by encouraging interoperable formats and mapping consortium outputs onto widely used community standards.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a cooperative agreement (U24), which typically means NIH staff will have substantial involvement in shaping priorities, milestones, and consortium coordination compared to a standard research grant. The "Clinical Trial Not Allowed" designation indicates the funded activities under this announcement should not include clinical trials, reinforcing that the focus is on preclinical functional profiling, data infrastructure, and consortium coordination rather than testing interventions in human participants. The opportunity falls under NIH with an activity category of Health and is associated with CFDA 93.242, reflecting NIMH-related assistance programs.

Eligibility is broad across U.S.-based organizations and includes various levels of government (state, county, city/township, special districts), independent school districts, public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), for-profit entities other than small businesses, and small businesses. It also explicitly calls out a wide range of institutional types such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and AANAPISI institutions, along with faith-based or community-based organizations and regional organizations, emphasizing inclusivity across organizational categories. Foreign institutions (non-U.S. entities) are not eligible to apply as applicant organizations, but non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are eligible, and foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed, meaning certain international collaborations can occur within NIH policy limits when tied to a U.S. applicant.

Key identifying details from the source include the funding opportunity number RFA-MH-22-110, with an original closing date of June 10, 2022, and a creation date of January 18, 2022. While the excerpt does not specify an award ceiling or the expected number of awards, the overall structure makes clear that this is meant to support a central coordinating hub that enables multiple experimental projects to function as a unified consortium, producing standardized, high-value datasets and resources that can accelerate research on how psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorder risk genes alter neural biology.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Scalable and Systematic Neurobiology of Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Disorder Risk Genes: Data Resource and Administrative Coordination 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): 93.242.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-01-18.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-06-10. (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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