JDRF Issues Call for Collaborative Projects to Advance Therapies and Cures for Type-1 Diabetes

Project grants of up to $2.25 million are available for multidisciplinary teams seeking to carry out high-impact research with the potential to accelerate the development of therapies to prevent, slow, reverse or cure type-1 diabetes.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) has issued a new Request for Applications – ‘Collaborative Advancement of Cures for T1D‘ – to invite proposals from coordinated, multidisciplinary teams seeking to carry out high-impact research with the potential to accelerate the development of therapies to prevent, slow, halt or reverse the progression of T1D and/or cure established T1D.

This RFA has been issued through the JDRF Cures Programme, which aims to develop and deliver advances in screening, disease-modifying therapies and beta cell replacement therapies that treat individuals at all ages and at all stages of disease. The overall objective of this RFA is the development of research collaboratives consisting of at least two or three laboratories, each contributing unique and complementary expertise, approaches, resources and capabilities (technological, subject-matter, or analytical), to advance the development of cures for T1D more than can be achieved in a single grant or by individual laboratories.

Grants of up to US$2.25 million over three years (US$500,000 per year for projects involving two partners and US$750,000 per year for projects involving three or more partners) are available to established and/or new collaborative teams of investigators for research that addresses a major gap-filling advancement in the development of therapies and cures for T1D.

Projects should address the development and enabling of clinical testing of therapies and approaches toward one or more of the following JDRF Cures Programme goals:

  • Screening:
    • The development of data and analysis necessary for improving the prediction of high- risk individuals.
  • Disease Modification:
    • Accelerating the development of disease modifying therapies that delay, stop, or reverse the development and progression of T1D, and enables pivotal clinical testing of these therapies.
    • Developing immunotherapy approaches that stop the autoimmune attack, enhance immune regulation, or deviate inflammatory processes.
    • Investigating approaches focused on promoting the function, survival, regeneration, and targeted delivery of therapies to beta cells.
  • Beta Cell Replacement:
    • Accelerating the development and validation of strategies that ensure cell survival and function in alternative sites of implantation.
    • Research that enables the development of safe, more efficacious, and longer-lasting cell therapies without the use of broad immunosuppression.

Priority consideration will be given to projects that outline research plans that are approaching clinical translation (late preclinical development) and proposals that outline courses of study that address multiple Cures Programme Strategies (for example, investigation into beta cell transplantation and immunotherapy to promote transplanted cell survival).

LOIs for this Request for Applications may be submitted by established and/or new collaborative teams of investigators, organisations and companies with the demonstrated expertise to carry out the research.

Teams that combine the expertise of established investigators in the field of T1D with those outside of the field that provide the required expertise to expand the experimental scope or capabilities of the proposed research and facilitate advancement are of high priority.

Letters of Intent for this RFA must be submitted by the deadline on 8 December 2022.

(This report was the subject of a RESEARCHconnect Newsflash.)