Call for Proposals: BRC Inflammation, Immunity & Immunotherapies Theme

Deadline: 8 February 2019. 

The remit of NIHR BRCs is to to drive progress on innovation and translational research in biomedicine into NHS practice. The success of the current BRC will be assessed on impact, so this call will support translational research that brings experimental medicine research closer to clinical practice by: leading to the development of new therapies, supporting interactions with industry partners to establish therapeutic/ diagnostic/ prognostic innovations, developing intellectual property through patient facing activities.

The III Theme aims to identify common pathogenetic mechanisms across diseases, and initiate preclinical studies of new anti-inflammatory and anti–fibrotic agents, as well as developing innovative antibody-based and cellular immunotherapies. 

Key objectives are:

1. Identification and validation of targets for novel therapies.
2. Validation of biomarkers and novel functional imaging to assess responses to novel therapies.
3. Delivery of novel therapies (including drug development, drug re-purposing, cell & gene therapies, regenerative medicine) in proof of concept clinical trials.

In this call, awards will be made by competition and will be reviewed by the BRC Inflammation, Immunity and Immunotherapeutics Theme Board.  Expert review will be sought where needed.

Awards will be made up to the value of £150,000 (directly incurred costs until end March 2021). The NIHR policy precludes funding animal research, and capital will not be funded.

Eligible use of the funding includes: 

• Pump priming applications for follow-on funding
• Salary support for research staff, including staff employed to undertake skilled analysis of data
• Research consumable costs including specialist imaging costs
• Costs of sample preparation to make existing datasets better able to garner external funds (e.g. preparation of DNA from stored blood samples)

All applications must demonstrate clearly how they align with strategic objectives of the Theme. Preference will be given to applications that are able to leverage funding from other sources, and which have a clear and credible plan for downstream grant applications predicated on the results of research funded through this scheme. Applications that have matched funding, from other BRC themes will be prioritised (there is an open HE&I call and an impending Cardiometabolic call)
Successful applicants will be required to submit both annual and final reports summarising outcomes and impact of the BRC support.