Bioengineering and Obesity (R01) | Apply Online

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Bioengineering and Obesity (R01) - PA-07-354

1) What is the Bioengineering and Obesity (R01) opportunity?

Bioengineering and Obesity (R01) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant announcement (Funding Opportunity Number PA-07-354) led by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). It supports full-scale Research Project Grant (R01) studies that create and validate engineering-based solutions to obesity-related clinical challenges, with a core emphasis on energy balance science and technology.

2) What is the main scientific focus of this announcement?

The central focus is energy balance, especially the measurement and understanding of energy intake and energy expenditure and how these contribute to obesity and related health outcomes. The announcement emphasizes tools and technologies that improve the ability to quantify signals tied to energy balance in accurate, practical, and clinically relevant ways.

3) What types of projects are considered responsive?

Projects are typically responsive when engineering innovation is the driver of the work, such as developing, adapting, or significantly improving technologies that enable better measurement, monitoring, imaging, or quantification of energy balance-related signals. Responsive projects commonly include development and validation of novel sensors, devices, imaging approaches, or other enabling technologies.

4) Is this opportunity meant to fund general obesity interventions?

Not primarily. The announcement is not aimed at funding general obesity interventions alone. Instead, it is geared toward projects where engineering development is central, specifically technologies that make energy balance-related measurement and monitoring more accurate, less invasive, more practical, or more informative than existing approaches.

5) What kinds of technologies does the FOA encourage?

The FOA encourages novel sensors, devices, imaging methods, and other enabling technologies, including approaches designed to detect biochemical markers and physiologic or metabolic indicators tied to energy balance. Examples described at a high level include tools that reflect energy intake, nutrient processing, storage, or energy expenditure.

6) What does the FOA mean by "engineering innovation is the driver"?

It means the proposal is expected to center on building, adapting, or substantially improving a measurement or monitoring tool or method, rather than only applying existing tools to obesity questions. The engineering work (device design, sensing, modeling, signal processing, etc.) should be directly linked to obesity and nutrition research needs and designed to solve practical clinical or translational measurement challenges.

7) Is validation required, or can a project be purely invention-focused?

The intent is not only to invent new hardware or methods, but also to evaluate them in a way that demonstrates they can address real clinical or translational problems in obesity and nutrition research. A strong proposal would generally include both engineering development and a credible validation plan.

8) What performance characteristics does NIH expect applicants to address in validation?

The announcement highlights performance characteristics such as sensitivity, specificity, reliability, reproducibility, usability, and clinical relevance. It also notes that testing environments should be appropriate for the maturity of the technology.

9) What does "appropriate testing environments" mean in this context?

Based on the announcement description, it means validation should be conducted in settings that match the technology's stage of development and demonstrate practical usefulness. Testing should support credible claims about performance and relevance to obesity and nutrition research or clinical workflows.

10) Is interdisciplinary collaboration required?

Yes. A defining expectation is genuine interdisciplinary collaboration. The NIH explicitly calls for teams that integrate engineers and other quantitative or technology-focused experts (such as physical scientists and mathematicians) with researchers who have domain expertise in obesity and nutrition.

11) Why does the FOA emphasize interdisciplinary teams?

The rationale provided is that the most useful obesity-related measurement and monitoring technologies tend to emerge when device design, modeling, and signal processing are tightly linked to real biological questions, clinical workflows, and the constraints of studying humans in realistic settings.

12) How should an application demonstrate interdisciplinary integration?

Competitive applications would be structured to show how different disciplines will integrate their work, how design and analysis decisions will be driven by obesity and nutrition science needs, and how success will be judged in terms of clinical or research impact.

13) What funding mechanism is used for this opportunity?

This opportunity uses the NIH R01 mechanism (Research Project Grant), described as NIH's standard mechanism for investigator-initiated research projects of substantial scope.

14) Is cost sharing or matching required?

No. The announcement states there is no cost sharing or matching requirement.

15) Are there multiple deadlines or a single deadline?

The announcement lists multiple receipt dates rather than a single deadline, indicating applications were accepted on recurring NIH submission cycles while the FOA remained active.

16) Is this funding opportunity still active?

No. It was originally posted April 13, 2007, and has an archive date of April 5, 2010. That means it is no longer active as written, though it may still be useful as a historical reference for NIH priorities during that period.

17) If it is archived, why might it still be useful?

The announcement can still serve as a template for understanding NIH priorities in bioengineering approaches to obesity at the time and for anticipating the kinds of projects NIH may continue to value under newer, related solicitations.

18) Who can apply (eligibility)?

Eligibility is broad. It includes domestic applicants such as public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations (with or without 501(c)(3) status), for-profit organizations (including small businesses and other for-profits), independent school districts, and multiple levels of government (city/township, county, state, special district, and public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities). Federally recognized Native American tribal governments and tribal organizations (other than federally recognized tribal governments) are also eligible.

19) Are foreign institutions eligible to apply?

Yes. Foreign institutions are explicitly eligible to apply under this announcement, which is not universal across all NIH opportunities.

20) Which NIH Institute is leading this announcement?

The announcement is led by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

21) What does the mention of multiple CFDA program areas imply?

The announcement is associated with multiple CFDA program areas spanning cancer research and control, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes/digestive/kidney diseases, and aging research. This reflects the cross-cutting nature of obesity-related bioengineering tools and signals that improved measurement of energy balance and related biomarkers can matter across many chronic disease domains where obesity is a risk factor or complicating condition.

22) Where can applicants find the authoritative FOA text?

The full announcement is available through the NIH Grants Guide at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-07-354.html (the URL formatting may vary depending on how it is accessed).

23) Who should be contacted for technical issues accessing or linking to the FOA?

For technical issues accessing or linking to the announcement, the listed contact is the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) Webmaster at FBOWebmaster@OD.NIH.GOV.

24) What is the overall theme of a competitive application under this FOA?

Based on the description provided, a competitive application would typically combine (1) meaningful engineering development of a measurement/monitoring technology relevant to energy balance and (2) a clear validation strategy demonstrating performance and real-world relevance, carried out by a genuinely interdisciplinary team that connects technical decisions to obesity and nutrition science needs.