Military personnel who suffer from Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) face an increased risk for developing several long-term health problems. These conditions can include Alzheimer’s-like dementia, aggression, memory loss, depression, and symptoms similar to those of other neurological diseases.
To help find solutions, the Department of Defense on August 21st released the funding notice titled “DOD FY 13 Militarily Relevant Peer Reviewed Alzheimer’s (MRPRAA) Disease Research Program”. The U.S Army Medical Research Acquisitions Activity (USAMRAA) is the awarding agency with the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) acting as the execution agent for the program.
The research goal is two-fold. The first goal is for the MRPRA Disease Research Program to find the association between TBI and the subsequent development of Alzheimer’s disease to reduce the burden on those affected by TBI and Alzheimer’s disease symptoms especially in the military community.
An important objective is to develop technologies that can directly benefit individuals suffering from cognitive and behavioral symptoms resulting in functional impairment associated with either TBI or Alzheimer’s disease. It is anticipated that the research community will provide support through a combination of mechanistic, pre-clinical, and pilot studies.
Applications must include a multi-institutional team of up to five partners to assess the standards of care for patients across the partners, measure best practices to reduce the burden on the caregiver and patient, and develop a dissemination plan where best practices can become the standard of care across the partners. Examples of partnering sites can be any combination of educational, non-profit, not-for-profit, and for-profit organizations including hospitals and departments within an organization.
An estimated $1.45 million in FY 13 funds are available to fund one application in response to the FY 13 funding opportunity notice as long as funds are available. The Cooperative Agreement grant funding instrument will be used.
The pre-application submission deadline for funding announcement (W81XWH-13-MRPRA-QUAL) is September 23, 2013 with the full application submission deadline to be December 16, 2013. Go to www.grants.gov/custom/viewOppDetails.jsp to view the funding announcement. To contact TATRC, go to programannouncements@tatrc.org.