The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement is to promote development of innovative, enabling tools and technologies in the areas of kidney, urologic, and hematologic diseases. Scientific discovery is often catalyzed by technological innovations. Studying the kidney, genitourinary tract, blood, and blood-forming organs present unique technological challenges. To address these challenges, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) invites applications through this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to develop novel tools and technologies that enable new lines of scientific inquiry into kidney, urologic, or hematologic (KUH) diseases.

This FOA is intended to support tool or technology development projects that will open new areas of science or translational research. The projects supported by this FOA must involve development activities, which could include prototyping of a new tool or significant improvement, adaptation, or optimization of an existing technology for the unique anatomy or physiology of KUH systems. In addition to development activities, projects may also include proof-of-concept studies and refinement of technical specifications for subsequent deployment of the technology in laboratory or clinical settings. Independent proof-of-concept studies or hypothesis-driven research, without any technological development activities, will not be supported by this FOA.

The tools and technologies developed under this FOA should be truly innovative and break new ground or extend previous discoveries toward new directions or applications. Applications to this FOA should include projects distinct from those that can be supported through the traditional R01 grant mechanism. This FOA is not intended to support “mini-R01s” with a traditional hypothesis-driven research plan. Furthermore, long-term projects, or projects designed to increase knowledge in a well-established area, are not appropriate for this FOA. Strong applications will develop new tools or technologies in kidney, urology or hematology with broad utility beyond the applicant's own laboratory and ideally push the entire field forward.

This FOA is not intended to support application of tools or technologies that have already been deployed within the proposed organ system, projects that include incremental advances, or projects that involve development of technologies that will have limited utility outside of the applicant's research interests. Development activities (engineering, prototyping, chemistry, optimization, etc.) should rise to the level of a Specific Aim. If the tool or technology was previously developed for another organ or biological system, the project must include significant, innovative development activities to adapt the technology for KUH systems. Extensive preliminary data demonstrating feasibility is an indication that the project is beyond the scope of this FOA.

These tools and technologies are expected to lead to scientific breakthroughs and/or significant advances in the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of kidney, urologic, or hematologic diseases, thus these projects may involve considerable technical and scientific risk that should be balanced by the potential high impact on human health and related research (i.e., high-risk, high-reward).