Single Cell Opioid Responses in the Context of HIV (SCORCH) Program: Data Coordination, Analysis, and Scientific Outreach (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DA 20 027

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DA 20 027

This funding opportunity, RFA-DA-20-027, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement (UM1) issued by the Department of Health and Human Services through NIH, with a focus on education and health (CFDA 93.279). The program is titled "Single Cell Opioid Responses in the Context of HIV (SCORCH) Program: Data Coordination, Analysis, and Scientific Outreach," and it is explicitly designated as "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," meaning the supported work should not involve initiating or running clinical trials. The central purpose is to create and operate a dedicated Data Center that supports the SCORCH research effort and related National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded projects at the intersection of HIV and substance use disorders.

At its core, the award aims to build a hub for data coordination and advanced analysis of single-cell and other molecular datasets produced by SCORCH and additional NIDA-funded HIV/substance use disorder studies. Single-cell data (for example, single-cell transcriptomics) and other molecular profiling outputs can be complex, large, and challenging to harmonize across labs and platforms. This Data Center is meant to address those challenges by serving as a centralized resource that can organize incoming datasets, apply consistent processing and quality control approaches, and conduct or support cross-study analyses that become possible only when data are standardized and integrated.

A major deliverable embedded in the opportunity is ensuring that the data are FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. In practical terms, this means the Data Center is expected to implement systems and practices that allow outside researchers to discover what data exist, obtain access through appropriate mechanisms, understand the data through rich documentation and metadata, and reuse them confidently in new analyses. FAIR principles typically involve thoughtful curation, consistent metadata standards, transparent provenance tracking (how data were generated and processed), and the use of widely accepted formats and ontologies so datasets can be combined and compared across projects. The emphasis on enabling secondary analyses highlights that this award is not only about supporting the original generating studies, but also about expanding the long-term scientific value of those datasets by making them usable by the broader community.

Because the funding instrument is a cooperative agreement, the relationship between the awardee and NIH is expected to be more collaborative and programmatically involved than a typical grant. Cooperative agreements commonly entail substantial NIH scientific or programmatic involvement in shaping priorities, milestones, coordination expectations, and data-sharing approaches. Here, that structure fits the Data Center role: coordinating across multiple contributing projects, aligning practices, and ensuring that outputs meet community standards and program goals.

The opportunity anticipates a single award (ExpectedAwards: 1), which signals that NIH intended to fund one primary Data Center to serve as the coordinating and analytical backbone for SCORCH-related molecular and single-cell data. The posting lists an award ceiling of 0, which generally indicates that a specific cap was not provided in the summary field and that applicants would need to consult the full announcement for budget guidance and expectations.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of organizations that could realistically host a national-scale data coordination and analytics operation. Eligible applicants include federal recognized tribal governments and tribal organizations, state and local governments, public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits (with or without 501(c)(3) status), public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), small businesses, and other entities as clarified in the full announcement. This wide eligibility suggests NIH was primarily seeking the best-qualified team and infrastructure for complex data stewardship and analysis rather than restricting applicants to a narrow institutional category.

Timing information in the source data shows the opportunity was created on September 25, 2019, with an original closing date of January 15, 2020. While those dates indicate the specific competition window for this announcement, the program description remains useful as a clear statement of NIH priorities around single-cell biology, opioids/substance use research, HIV, and robust data sharing.

In summary, this UM1 opportunity funded the creation of a centralized SCORCH Data Center responsible for coordinating, curating, integrating, and analyzing single-cell and other molecular datasets generated across SCORCH and related NIDA-funded HIV and substance use disorder projects. A defining goal is to make these resources FAIR so they can be broadly discovered and reused, thereby accelerating downstream, community-driven secondary analyses and maximizing the scientific impact of high-dimensional molecular datasets in this research area.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Single Cell Opioid Responses in the Context of HIV (SCORCH) Program: Data Coordination, Analysis, and Scientific Outreach (UM1 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): 93.279.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 25, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jan 15, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• 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 (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for RFA DA 20 027

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