Center for Identification and Study of Individuals with Atypical Diabetes Mellitus (U54) | RFA DK 17 006

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DK 17 006

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity titled "Center for Identification and Study of Individuals with Atypical Diabetes Mellitus (U54)" (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-DK-17-006) supports the creation of a specialized research Center focused on rare and atypical forms of diabetes mellitus. It is offered as a cooperative agreement (U54), meaning the NIH expects to have substantial involvement in the Center's activities beyond standard grant oversight, typically through close coordination, shared priorities, and programmatic collaboration. The scientific idea behind the program is that carefully studying unusual, rare, or currently uncharacterized diabetes cases can reveal underlying biological pathways and mechanisms that also contribute to the broader, more complex forms of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) seen in the general population. In other words, these atypical cases can act like high-signal "clues" that help researchers untangle the heterogeneity of common T2DM.

The Center is expected to do two primary things. First, it should develop and implement a clear, workable process to identify, recruit, and study individuals and families who have rare, atypical, or uncharacterized forms of diabetes. This generally implies building clinical and research workflows that can recognize unusual disease presentations, standardize phenotyping, and apply advanced analyses such as genetic or genomic approaches to identify potential causal or contributing defects. The emphasis on both phenotypic and genotypic defects highlights that the Center is meant to integrate detailed clinical characterization (for example, age of onset, insulin sensitivity, autoantibody status, comorbidities, treatment response, and metabolic features) with genetic information (such as sequencing, variant interpretation, and family-based analyses) to pinpoint mechanisms that may not be obvious in large, mixed T2DM populations.

Second, the Center must create, maintain, and manage a database and biospecimen repository specifically for rare and atypical diabetes forms, structured as a community resource. This resource-building component is central to the FOA: the goal is not only to study enrolled participants within the Center's own projects, but also to enable future discovery by the broader research community by collecting, curating, and disseminating data and biological samples. That typically entails building strong data standards, quality control procedures, governance and access policies, and systems for sample collection, processing, storage, and distribution. The underlying expectation is that a well-curated repository and database will accelerate additional analyses by outside investigators, support replication studies, enable new hypotheses to be tested, and reduce duplicated effort across the field.

In terms of eligibility, the FOA is broadly open to many U.S.-based organizational types, reflecting the NIH's intent to attract applicants with the necessary clinical, scientific, and infrastructure capabilities. Eligible applicants include various levels of government (state, county, city/township, and special district governments), independent school districts, public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education), and for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) as well as small businesses. The FOA also explicitly calls out additional eligible applicants such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), along with faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions. This breadth signals an interest in inclusivity and in reaching populations that may be underrepresented in biomedical research, which can be especially important when the focus is on rare conditions that may be more detectable through wide clinical networks.

Foreign eligibility is restricted in a specific way. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply as the primary applicant organization, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. However, "foreign components" are allowed as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, meaning parts of the work can be performed outside the U.S. under a U.S. award when justified and appropriately structured, but the main applicant and awardee organization must be domestic.

Administratively, this opportunity falls under the NIH, with an activity area listed as Food and Nutrition and Health and a CFDA number of 93.847. The FOA was created on May 16, 2017, and the original closing date was November 2, 2017. The award ceiling and expected number of awards are not specified in the provided source text, which often means applicants would need to consult the full FOA or NIH program contacts for budget and award volume expectations. Overall, the program is designed to build a durable, widely useful infrastructure for atypical diabetes research while simultaneously generating mechanistic insights that can inform the understanding of common Type 2 diabetes through the study of rare, high-information cases.

• The National Institutes of Health in the food and nutrition, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Center for Identification and Study of Individuals with Atypical Diabetes Mellitus (U54)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.847.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-05-16.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-11-02. (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 DK 17 006

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: