Center for Natural Product Technology, Methodology, and Productivity Optimization (NP-TEMPO) (U41 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AT 19 003

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AT 19 003

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity RFA AT 19 003 invites applications to create a National Center for Natural Product Technology, Methodology, and Productivity Optimization (NP-TEMPO) under a U41 cooperative agreement mechanism, with clinical trials not allowed. The central goal is to build a national resource focused on upgrading and standardizing the technologies and methods used in natural products research, particularly in ways that remove current bottlenecks and raise the overall speed, rigor, and reproducibility of the field. In practical terms, the center is expected to develop, refine, adapt, and broadly disseminate cutting-edge approaches that make it easier to characterize natural products and understand what they do biologically, with a strong emphasis on improving chemical and biological annotation (for example, better identification, structure determination, and functional interpretation of complex natural product mixtures and constituents).

A defining feature of this FOA is that it is positioned as part of a coordinated set of NIH investments in natural products and botanical research infrastructure. It was released alongside the NCCIH NMR Open Access Data Exchange (NODE) effort and the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) Botanical Dietary Supplement Research Centers Program. Together, these related awards are described as the NCCIH/ODS Centers Advancing Research on Botanical and Other Natural Products (CARBON) Program. This signals that NP-TEMPO is not meant to operate in isolation; instead, it is intended to plug into a broader ecosystem of complementary NIH-supported resources, data-sharing efforts, and research centers to accelerate progress across the community.

Collaboration is explicitly encouraged through NP-TEMPO Technology Demonstration Projects (TDPs). These demonstration projects are meant to be a practical bridge between tool-building and real-world use, where NP-TEMPO works with NODE, the Botanical Dietary Supplement Research Centers, and other NCCIH, ODS, and NIH-funded groups to test and showcase new or improved technologies. The expectation is that the center will not only invent or optimize methods, but also prove their value in real research settings and help other groups adopt them, thereby increasing the productivity and impact of natural products research nationally.

The opportunity uses a cooperative agreement (U41), which generally indicates substantial NIH involvement during the project compared to a standard grant. While the specific management details are not provided in your excerpt, applicants should typically expect a more collaborative relationship with NIH program staff, including shared priorities around deliverables, coordination with related NIH initiatives, and community-facing outputs that can be broadly used by other researchers. The FOA is also clearly limited to non-clinical trial activities, keeping the focus on technology, methodology, and research-enabling infrastructure rather than clinical testing.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S.-based organizations and government entities, including state, county, city or township, and special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); small businesses; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; and Native American tribal governments (federally recognized) as well as tribal organizations that are not federally recognized. The FOA also highlights additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions.

At the same time, there are important limits on foreign involvement. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and non-domestic institutions are not eligible to apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. However, foreign components, as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed. This typically means a U.S. applicant may include certain well-justified international collaborations or activities as foreign components under NIH policy, even though the applicant organization itself must be domestic and the project cannot be led by a foreign institution.

From the administrative details provided, the sponsoring agency is NIH, the opportunity category is discretionary, and the funding activity is within the health domain (CFDA numbers 93.213 and 93.321). The FOA was created on January 22, 2019, with an original closing date of April 29, 2019. The listed award ceiling is $700,000, indicating an upper bound on funding per award within the parameters of this announcement (the excerpt does not specify the project period or whether the ceiling is annual or total, so applicants would normally confirm that in the full FOA text).

Overall, NP-TEMPO is essentially a national-scale methods and technology center designed to modernize natural products research. It aims to raise the field's capabilities in identifying and interpreting natural product chemistry and biology, and it is structured to work hand-in-hand with NIH-supported data exchange and botanical research center efforts under the CARBON Program umbrella, using demonstration projects to ensure the tools developed are validated, adoptable, and broadly useful to the research community.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Center for Natural Product Technology, Methodology, and Productivity Optimization (NP-TEMPO) (U41 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.213, 93.321.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2019-01-22.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-04-29. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $700,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA AT 19 003

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