Funding Opportunity Description
Avenir means future in French, and this award looks toward the future by supporting early stage investigators proposing highly innovative studies. The award will support those in an early stage of their career who may lack the preliminary data required for an R01 grant, but who propose high impact research and who show promise of being tomorrow's leaders in the field of genetics or epigenetics of substance use disorders.

The Genetics or Epigenetics of Substance Use Disorders Avenir Award program supports early stage investigators proposing highly innovative studies that open new areas of research for the genetics or epigenetics of addiction. These may be novel methods or approaches that can potentially be applied to the analysis of the genetics or epigenetics of addiction. Investigations into the regulation of CNS gene expression is appropriate for this FOA as are investigations into the effects of gene expression or (epi)genetic variants on CNS cellular functions. Investigators outside the field of addiction interested in applying their novel approaches to the genetics or epigenetics of addiction are encouraged to apply. The award will support those in an early stage of their career who may lack the preliminary data required for an R01 grant, but who propose high impact research and who show promise of being tomorrow's leaders in the field of genetics or epigenetics of substance use disorders.

A hyperlink to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Avenir Award Program for Genetics or Epigenetics of Substance Use Disorders (DP1) is provided to assist Early Stage Investigators (ESI) in applying for this funding opportunity announcement. The URL for the FAQ web page is https://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/organization/divisions/division-neuroscience-behavior-dnb/related-funding-opportunities.

This announcement is focused on substance use disorders not their medical consequences. Applicants interested in medical consequences of substance use disorders should contact the program official(s) listed at end of this announcement about alternative funding opportunities.

Special Consideration

Establishment of a Standard delta-9-THC Unit to be used in Research:

Applications proposing research on cannabis or its main psychotropic constituent delta-9-THC are required to measure and report results using a standard delta-9-THC unit in all applicable human subjects research. The goal is to increase the comparability across cannabis research studies. A standard delta-9-THC unit is defined as any formulation of cannabis plant material or extract that contains 5 milligrams of delta-9-THC. A justification should be provided for human research that does not propose to use the standard unit. Please see https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-DA-21-049.htmlfor additional details.

Data sharing language:

Data Sharing: NIDA strongly encourages investigators to share data with other investigators. NIDA expects that applicants to NIDA funding opportunity announcements: 1) submit their data to one of the NIH data archives for sharing; 2) include specific required elements in the Resource Sharing Plan including a description of whether and how the consents that will be used to obtain that data will affect the research that can be done with that data; and 3) include costs attributed to data preparation and submission to a data archive in grant applications.

See Section VIII. Other Information for award authorities and regulations.

Avenir means future in French, and this award looks toward the future by supporting early stage investigators proposing highly innovative studies. The award will support those in an early stage of their career who may lack the preliminary data required for an R01 grant, but who propose high impact research and who show promise of being tomorrow's leaders in the field. NIDA has developed two Avenir Award Programs, one for HIV/AIDS research and the other for genetics or epigenetics studies.