HEAL Initiative: Human Pain-associated Genes and Cells Data Coordination and Integration Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA NS 22 021

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA NS 22 021

The HEAL Initiative: Human Pain-associated Genes and Cells Data Coordination and Integration Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) funding opportunity (RFA-NS-22-021) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement designed to build a centralized hub for managing, standardizing, and sharing complex human pain biology data. It sits within the NIH HEAL Initiative and specifically supports the PRECISION Human Pain program, which is focused on uncovering how genes, cell types, and cellular functions contribute to different pain conditions. Instead of funding a traditional lab project, this award supports an enabling infrastructure project: a Data Coordination and Integration Center that helps the entire network function as a cohesive, data-driven collaboration.

The core purpose of the Center is to curate, harmonize, and integrate large-scale datasets produced by companion U19 research Centers for Discovery and Functional Evaluation of Human Pain-associated Genes and Cells. Those U19 centers generate comprehensive "-omics" data (for example, genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic and related molecular profiles) along with cellular function datasets tied to human pain mechanisms. The U24 Center is meant to make these diverse outputs usable together by aligning formats, ensuring consistent metadata and definitions, and building an integrated view of the biology underlying pain signal transduction, transmission, and processing. In practical terms, the Center acts as the backbone for turning many separate datasets into a coherent, interoperable resource that can reveal how specific molecular and cellular pathways contribute to pain vulnerability, heterogeneity across individuals, and disease pathogenesis.

A major emphasis is on creating and enforcing standards that allow heterogeneous pain-related data types to be combined without losing meaning. The opportunity highlights two key types of standardization. First, spatial standards: the Center is expected to help collect and register multimodal data to common neural tissue coordinate systems, which is especially important when linking molecular profiles to specific anatomical locations in nervous system tissues. Second, semantic standards: the Center is expected to establish consistent vocabularies, data dictionaries, ontologies, and metadata practices so that terms, variables, and biological annotations are comparable across studies and sites. Together, these standards are intended to prevent the typical "data silo" problem where datasets exist but cannot be reliably merged or compared.

Another central deliverable is a web-accessible information system intended for broad use by the research community. The Center is expected to build or maintain a platform where integrated datasets, maps, and related resources can be accessed and explored. This is meant to support not only the PRECISION Human Pain network but also the wider field by providing organized, well-annotated resources that researchers can reuse to generate hypotheses, validate findings, and accelerate translation. The overall network goal is to produce comprehensive integrated datasets and maps linking human genes and cellular function phenotypes to pain conditions, with a specific focus on understanding why pain presents differently across people and why certain individuals are susceptible to particular pain disorders.

The award mechanism is a U24 cooperative agreement, which typically means NIH expects substantial involvement in the project through coordination, oversight, and collaboration expectations. The FOA explicitly states "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," signaling that the supported activities should not include conducting clinical trials, and that the Center is fundamentally an informatics, coordination, and data integration effort rather than an interventional clinical research program.

Eligibility is broad across U.S.-based organizations, including state, county, and local governments; public and private institutions of higher education; nonprofit organizations (with or without 501(c)(3) status); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses, as well as certain tribal governments and housing authorities. The FOA also calls out additional eligible applicant types such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian serving institutions, and other community- or faith-based organizations, among others. However, non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply, while foreign components as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement are allowed. The opportunity is administered by NIH, was created on 2022-02-04, and originally closed on 2023-03-09. The listing includes multiple CFDA numbers associated with NIH programs (93.121, 93.213, 93.273, 93.393, 93.846, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866).

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "HEAL Initiative: Human Pain-associated Genes and Cells Data Coordination and Integration Center (U24 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): 93.121, 93.213, 93.273, 93.393, 93.846, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-02-04.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-03-09. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• 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 NS 22 021

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