Morris K. Udall Centers of Excellence for Parkinsons Disease Research (P50) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Morris K. Udall Centers of Excellence for Parkinsons Disease Research (P50) grant opportunity (RFA-NS-11-004) is a National Institutes of Health program run through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) that supports large, center-based efforts focused squarely on Parkinsons disease (PD). The program is designed to build and maintain a national network of Udall Centers that can pursue ambitious research agendas at their own institutions while also working collaboratively across the broader network. The long-term purpose is to define the causes of PD and ultimately help drive discovery of a cure, while the near-term expectation is that each funded Center will function as a high-impact hub that accelerates progress, integrates expertise across disciplines, and serves as a local resource and national leader in PD research and treatment.

Applications are expected to be organized around a clear overall scientific theme, and every element of the Center has to connect back to PD in a direct way. The proposed research projects and any supporting scientific or clinical cores must relate to the etiology (causes), pathogenesis (disease mechanisms), or treatment of Parkinsons disease. Work on related parkinsonian disorders can be included, but only when it clearly informs Parkinsons disease research rather than drifting into a separate disease area. In other words, the Center structure is meant to keep the program tightly focused while still allowing investigators to use closely related conditions to answer questions that matter for PD.

A key feature of this mechanism is that it funds a coordinated set of multiple projects rather than a single research plan. Each application must include at least three interdisciplinary research projects, emphasizing synergy across investigators and approaches. Within those projects, the Center must include at least one early stage translational research project. In this announcement, translational research is defined in practical, product-oriented terms: studies aimed at developing therapeutics, diagnostics, devices, or clinical criteria that could ultimately lead to new approaches for treating Parkinsons disease. This requirement signals that the program is not only about understanding basic biology, but also about moving promising ideas toward tools and interventions that can matter clinically, even if they are still early in the translation pipeline.

Beyond the research projects themselves, the Udall Center model requires shared infrastructure in the form of cores. Each application must propose a set of resource-related cores that are essential to completing the aims of the projects, providing capabilities that multiple projects will use (for example, scientific, clinical, data, or other shared resources, depending on the Centers specific plan). The program also requires an Administrative Core to manage the overall Center, coordinate projects and cores, and support communication and governance. Training is also explicitly addressed: if an applicant does not include a dedicated Research and Education Core, the application must still present a specific training mission statement within the Administrative Core section, making clear how the Center will contribute to developing researchers and building capacity in the PD field.

On the funding and administrative side, this is a discretionary grant program under the NIH and uses the P50 specialized center grant mechanism. The CFDA listing associated with this opportunity is 93.853 (Extramural Research Programs in the Neurosciences and Neurological Disorders). The opportunity does not require cost sharing or matching. The posting and creation date for the announcement was March 4, 2011, with an original and current closing date of May 10, 2011, and an archive date of June 10, 2011. The estimated total funding listed for the opportunity was $6,750,000, and the listed award ceiling was $1,000,000, indicating the program anticipated making multiple awards within a defined budget while capping the maximum size of individual awards.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of domestic organizations and governments. Eligible applicants include public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education where specified), for-profit organizations (including small businesses and other for-profits), and a range of governmental entities such as state governments, county governments, city or township governments, special district governments, independent school districts, and public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities. Tribal governments and organizations are also included, including federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other tribal organizations. The eligibility list also explicitly mentions categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and faith-based or community-based organizations, as well as regional organizations and U.S. territories or possessions. Foreign organizations (non-U.S. entities) are not eligible to apply, although foreign components of U.S. organizations are allowed, which can enable international collaborations when they are managed through a U.S. applicant institution.

Overall, the Udall Centers program is structured to fund integrated, team-based Parkinsons disease research that combines multiple projects with shared cores and strong coordination, while pushing at least part of the portfolio toward translation. The expectation is that these Centers will not operate as isolated labs, but as coordinated programs with measurable synergy, strong management, and a clear role in training and field leadership, contributing both locally and as part of a national network aimed at accelerating progress toward better treatments and, ultimately, a cure for Parkinsons disease.

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