Limited Competition: NIDCD National Temporal Bone, Hearing and Balance Pathology Resource Registry (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DC 19 002

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DC 19 002

This funding opportunity, RFA-DC-19-002, is a limited-competition cooperative agreement (U24; clinical trials not allowed) from the National Institutes of Health, specifically NIDCD (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders). It supports the NIDCD National Temporal Bone, Hearing and Balance Pathology Resource Registry, a long-standing national research resource focused on human auditory (hearing) and vestibular (balance) science. The central idea is to sustain and strengthen a coordinated national system that tracks, manages, and helps make accessible human temporal bone specimens and related data so researchers can study the middle and inner ear in ways that are not possible in living people.

The Registry is described as more than a basic database or a simple tissue bank. Its mission combines several functions: coordinating the collection of temporal bone tissues after death, standardizing and recording specimen-related information, building and maintaining an information-rich data infrastructure, and actively recruiting people who are willing to pledge temporal bone donation. It also serves as a public-facing resource, including maintaining an up-to-date website that informs both the scientific community and the public about temporal bone donation and the availability and importance of these specimens for research. Because many critical ear disorders involve microscopic anatomy, cellular pathology, or molecular changes that cannot be examined directly in living humans, temporal bone specimens are uniquely valuable for answering questions about disease mechanisms, structure-function relationships, and the biological basis of hearing and balance disorders. The opportunity also emphasizes translation: human temporal bone research can validate and extend findings from animal models by confirming whether similar mechanisms and pathologies occur in humans.

A major expected outcome under this cooperative agreement is the continued development and maintenance of a growing national database that provides detailed, searchable information about both new and archival temporal bone tissues across the United States. This includes practical specimen-level details such as where tissues are located, their condition, and other bioinformatics-style descriptors that help investigators determine whether specific specimens are appropriate for particular research questions. The Registry is also expected to actively communicate with scientific and clinical researchers to disseminate information about available resources, helping investigators connect with appropriate specimen-holding laboratories and understand what materials and associated data exist.

Operationally, the opportunity calls for a well-organized nationwide network of on-call experts who can support timely post-mortem harvesting of temporal bone tissues. Temporal bone procurement is time-sensitive and technically demanding, so the Registry is expected to maintain readiness and coordination capacity so recoveries can occur quickly and appropriately when a donor passes away. In addition, applicants are expected to develop and implement strategies for the efficient receipt and transfer of harvested tissue to nearby temporal bone laboratories, which helps protect tissue quality and ensures that specimens enter established processing and storage pipelines with minimal delay.

The grant also encourages innovation and improvement in donor recruitment and post-mortem tissue procurement. That includes developing new methods or techniques that increase donor participation, streamline logistics, and improve overall specimen quality and usability for modern research needs. Another key element is linking pledges for donation with relevant medical histories, enabling future research that connects clinical symptoms and functional disorders (such as particular forms of hearing loss, tinnitus, or balance dysfunction) with morphological, biochemical, and genetic findings in the donated tissues. In practice, this means building the infrastructure and consent/communication processes needed to pair specimen information with meaningful clinical context, which significantly increases the scientific value of each donation.

Education and outreach are explicitly part of the program. The Registry is expected to provide outreach to researchers, clinicians, and the public to explain why temporal bone donations matter, how donation works, and how these specimens advance understanding and treatment of ear disorders. This public information role is reinforced by the requirement for an up-to-date website and ongoing communications about the Registry and its resources.

In terms of eligibility and restrictions, the opportunity is limited and U.S.-focused. Eligible applicants include public and state-controlled institutions of higher education. Foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible. Foreign components, as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are not allowed under this announcement. The funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, which typically means substantial NIH programmatic involvement compared to a standard grant, with NIH staff working collaboratively with the awardee on key goals, coordination, and oversight.

Key administrative details provided include an award ceiling of $425,000, an original closing date of June 24, 2019, and a creation date of July 5, 2018. The CFDA number listed is 93.173, and the activity category is Health. Overall, the opportunity is aimed at sustaining a national, coordinated, and service-oriented infrastructure that makes high-value human temporal bone specimens and associated data discoverable, obtainable, and scientifically useful, while strengthening donor recruitment, rapid procurement capacity, and outreach to both the research community and the public.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Limited Competition: NIDCD National Temporal Bone, Hearing and Balance Pathology Resource Registry (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): 93.173.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-07-05.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-06-24. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $425,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for RFA DC 19 002

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