NIAID issued a Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Advancing Research Needed to Develop a Universal Influenza Vaccine with the aim of continuing to foster new and innovative scientific endeavors related to Universal Influenza Vaccine Research that advance the three major research areas defined in our Strategic Plan for the Development of a Universal Influenza Vaccine:
- Improve understanding of transmission, natural history, and pathogenesis of influenza virus infection.
- Characterize influenza immunity and correlates of immune protection.
- Support rational design of universal influenza vaccines.
Background and Research Objectives
Vaccines remain the greatest public health tool to protect against influenza illness and disease. However, to more effectively protect the public against seasonal and pandemic influenzas, improved vaccines with broader, more durable protection are needed. To directly address this need, the NOSI is requesting grant applications proposing scientific projects in areas that include, but are not limited to:
- Expand understanding of how viral, host, and environmental factors contribute to viral transmission.
- Define the role of anti-hemagglutinin (HA) stem and anti-neuraminidase (NA) antibodies in prevention of transmission.
- Identify factors associated with the severity of influenza.
- Precisely characterize circulating influenza viruses to assess the breadth of protection required from vaccines.
- Improve understanding of antigenic drift and immunodominance of various influenza antigens.
- Investigate interrelated roles of T and B cells in influenza responses to vaccination and infection.
- Characterize immune responses in diverse populations (including but not limited to different ages, sex, pregnancy, obesity, presence of co-infections or other comorbidities, and compromised immunity).
- Identify factors that determine immunodominant hierarchies of B cell responses.
- Characterize antibody responses to HA and NA and their contribution to immune protection.
- Define how the initial encounter with an influenza virus (i.e., immune imprinting) affects B and T cell responses, including immunologic responses to subsequent influenza virus infection.
- Identify major influenza epitopes that elicit broadly protective T cell immunity.
- Determine T cell effector function(s) necessary to enhance protective immunity or to modulate disease severity.
- Determine whether T cells require localization in lymph nodes or mucosal tissue to be protective.
- Rational design of new immunogens, and mechanistic characterization of vaccines with greater breadth and durability than currently licensed vaccines.
- Utilize new vaccine approaches that elicit both humoral and cell-mediated responses.
- Employ novel delivery mechanisms or vaccine regimens that result in improved mucosal or tissue resident responses.
- Incorporate novel adjuvants, with a specific emphasis on combination adjuvants and mucosal adjuvants, to enhance vaccine responses.
- Test controlled-release vaccine strategies to improve the breadth and durability of vaccine responses.
- Develop animal models to test T-cell targeting vaccine platforms.
- Compare data from human challenge studies with data from studies of natural infection.
- Utilize existing datasets from human cohorts and animal models to better predict protective responses to infection and/or vaccination.
Application and Submission Information
This notice applies to application receipt dates on or after February 5, 2025, and subsequent receipt dates through November 16, 2027.
Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following notices of funding opportunities (NOFOs) or any reissues of these announcements through the expiration date of this notice. Your budget and project period limits will be determined by which NOFO you select for your application.
- NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01, Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
- NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21, Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-AI-24-081" (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF 424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative. Refer to the NOSI for additional instructions.
Direct scientific questions to Dr. Jennifer Gordon at jennifer.gordon2@nih.gov or 301-761-6805 or Dr. Kentner Singleton at kentner.singleton@nih.gov or 240-669-5499.