DoD Tick-Borne Disease, Career Development Award | W81XWH 21 TBDRP CDA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 21 TBDRP CDA

The DoD Tick-Borne Disease, Career Development Award (FY21 TBDRP CDA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH-21-TBDRP-CDA) is a research career development program run through the Department of Defense (Department of the Army, USAMRAA) under the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP). Its central purpose is to help early-career investigators build the skills, track record, and scientific independence needed to become leaders in tick-borne disease research. The award is structured around a mentored research experience, pairing an eligible early-career Principal Investigator (PI) with an established tick-borne disease researcher who can provide sustained guidance while the PI drives the scientific direction and grows toward independence.

This funding mechanism supports impactful, discovery-focused research that can be translational in the sense of moving toward improved understanding, diagnostics, or interventions, but it explicitly does not support clinical trials. Human subjects research and research involving human anatomical substances are allowed, but applicants must avoid proposals that meet the definition of a clinical trial (where human subjects are prospectively assigned to one or more interventions, including placebo or controls, to evaluate effects on health-related outcomes). In other words, observational studies, analyses of existing samples, mechanistic work, and other non-interventional human research may fit, but interventional clinical testing does not.

A defining feature of the CDA is that the early-career investigator is the PI and the application is evaluated primarily on the PI and their trajectory. Reviewers expect the research concept to be intellectually designed by the PI rather than being an extension of the mentor's ongoing work. Preliminary data are not required, but the proposal still needs to be strong and hypothesis-driven, with a clear scientific rationale grounded in the literature. Applicants are expected to demonstrate novelty and to show that the work is non-duplicative, meaning the PI and mentor should explicitly confirm that the study is not simply repeating existing findings or overlapping heavily with prior or ongoing projects.

Eligibility and career-stage requirements are central. The PI must be an early-career research scientist, physician scientist, or similarly qualified clinical scientist within 10 years of completing a terminal degree, with allowable exclusions for time spent in residency or on family medical leave. Because the award is aimed at career development, the PI's institution must show a meaningful commitment to the candidate by providing at least 75 percent protected research time for the PI to pursue tick-borne disease research (and the announcement signals that more protected time is preferable). The PI's prior accomplishments and the proposed project are judged for their potential to advance the field and to position the PI for an independent research career.

Mentorship requirements are equally specific. The mentor must be an experienced tick-borne disease researcher with a recent (past 5 years) record of funding and publications in tick-borne diseases, and ideally prior experience mentoring investigators to independence. The mentor must hold at least the rank of Associate Professor (or equivalent) and must show a clear commitment to the PI's development. The program also emphasizes fit: as a team, the PI and mentor should collectively cover the pathogen/disease area and the methods proposed. The mentor and PI do not have to be at the same institution, allowing applicants to build mentorship arrangements across organizations if that best supports the PI's growth.

A formal career development plan is required and is treated as a core component rather than an add-on. Prepared by the PI with mentor input, the plan should spell out how the PI will gain technical and conceptual expertise in tick-borne disease research, expand professional networks, and engage with relevant scientific and (when applicable) advocacy communities. Reviewers are looking for a concrete strategy to acquire new skills and competencies, along with a practical description of how the mentor will contribute throughout the project period to both the PI's development and the successful execution of the research.

On the research design side, the opportunity encourages applicants to leverage existing resources to strengthen studies and maximize statistical power. The use of validated specimens from Lyme disease and other tick-borne disease biorepositories and databases is encouraged but not mandatory. The announcement also signals several preferred rigor and reproducibility practices when relevant, including authentication of proposed cell lines, statistical rigor in in vitro and preclinical animal studies, and validation in well-characterized patient cohorts with uniform documentation. Projects that make use of large patient datasets with long-term health records, established biospecimen repositories, or pre-existing research infrastructure are viewed positively, especially when paired with modern analytic approaches such as genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics, or mathematical modeling. When biorepositories or databases are used, applicants are expected to clearly describe inclusion and exclusion criteria for specimens or data to support validity and interpretability.

Awards are made as federal assistance agreements, meaning funding is provided to support a public purpose rather than to procure a product or service for the government. Depending on the anticipated level of DoD involvement during performance, the award may be issued as a grant (when no substantial involvement is expected) or as a cooperative agreement (when substantial involvement is expected, such as collaboration or participation by the funding agency). The specific award type and start date are determined during negotiations, and if a cooperative agreement is used, the nature of the substantial involvement is identified in the award terms.

From a budget and scale standpoint, the anticipated maximum direct costs for the entire period of performance are capped at $300,000 per award. For FY21, CDMRP planned to allocate about $1.44 million total to support approximately three Career Development Awards, with actual awards dependent on federal fund availability and the volume, quality, and programmatic fit of submitted applications. The original application closing date listed for this opportunity was August 27, 2021, with awards anticipated to be made no later than September 30, 2022. Funding was expected to come from FY21 appropriations, with those funds available for use through September 30, 2027, reflecting the limited period during which that fiscal year's funds can be expended.

In practical terms, this opportunity is best understood as a mentored launchpad: it funds a PI-led, hypothesis-driven tick-borne disease research project (not a clinical trial) while requiring strong institutional protected time, a qualified and committed mentor, and a detailed career development roadmap aimed at moving the PI toward research independence and sustained contributions to the tick-borne disease field.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Tick-Borne Disease, Career Development Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 22, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 27, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 3 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 21 TBDRP CDA

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