Suzanne D. Vernon, PhD Scientific Director

Still Running for the Money …

By Suzanne D. Vernon, PhD
Scientific Director, The CFIDS Association of America

I have never been much of a runner, but it looks like I am going to have to get used to it. In the July 2009 edition of CFIDSLink, I reported that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had received $500 million from the economic stimulus package for grants and training. Several new funding opportunities resulted, including the Challenge Grants and Grand Opportunities grants. The NIH made 12,794 awards to investigators throughout the U.S. You can view a list of NIH grants funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) using the NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool.

As Dr. Cheryl Kitt reported on Oct. 30 at the CFS Advisory Committee meeting, the Challenge Grant and Grand Opportunities announcements received an unprecedented number of responses. The CFIDS Association developed proposals involving collaborators in several academic institutions to both programs, however, neither the Challenge Grant nor the Grand Opportunity applications were funded. We were encouraged by the reviewers’ comments on our Grand Opportunity application. Only 15-20 percent of grants submitted to NIH get funded (including resubmissions), and we are undeterred. Also, more opportunities to secure ARRA funds for CFS research remain.

The NIH recently announced a Recovery Act-limited grant competition titled “Building Sustainable Community-Linked Infrastructure to Enable Health Science Research.” This funding opportunity aims to support the development, expansion, or reconfiguration of infrastructures needed to facilitate collaboration between academic health centers and community-based organizations for health science research. The idea is that collaboration between academics and communities would accelerate the pace, productivity, dissemination, and implementation of health research – exactly what the Association’s research program aims to do! With the recent success of our NIH-sponsored meeting at Banbury Center, the timing of this funding opportunity could not have been better. Dr. Leonard Jason of DePaul University and Dr. Julian Stewart of New York Medical College will serve as the academic health center investigators and the CFIDS Association will be the community-based organization. If we are successful and awarded this grant, we intend to establish a structured collaboration between the CFS community and academic clinical and laboratory researchers. This collaborative environment will allow the development of best practices and standard procedures for both CFS research and clinical practice. This application is due in December; peer review occurs through the late winter months and funding announcements will be made in May 2010.

Another agency of the Department of Health and Human Services awarding research funds under ARRA is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The mission of AHRQ is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. It received $1 billion from the Recovery Act for comparative effectiveness research (CER). CER is defined as “the conduct and synthesis of research comparing the benefits and harms of different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat and monitor health conditions in ‘real world’ settings.” A funding opportunity called CHOICE (Clinical and Health Outcomes Initiative in Comparative Effectiveness) was recently issued by AHRQ; while no specific diseases are mentioned, AHRQ prioritizes a number of conditions for study, including those resulting in functional limitations and disability. The CFIDS Association will submit a CHOICE grant application in collaboration with clinical investigators who are part of integrated health care delivery systems and networks. The focus of this application will be to use clinical and laboratory information to identify specific types of CFS so that interventions can be targeted to improve the effectiveness of various treatment approaches. This application is also due in December and we will hear if the project is funded in August of 2010.

The race is on! Let’s solve CFS!

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