NIBIB Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)

This Trailblazer Award is an opportunity for New and Early Stage Investigators to pursue research programs of high interest to the NIBIB that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and behavioral sciences. This FOA invites applications from researchers who are at the early stage of their independent careers or those who have not had substantial prior NIH funding. A Trailblazer project may be exploratory, developmental, proof of concept, or high risk-high impact, and may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven. Importantly, applicants are expected to propose research approaches for which there are minimal or no preliminary data. Preliminary Data: Trailblazer applications are meant to be exploratory, novel, and non-incremental. We encourage the submission of high-risk, high-reward projects. A distinct feature for this FOA is that no preliminary data are required, expected, or encouraged. However, if necessary, some minimal preliminary data is allowed. Minimal preliminary data are defined as material which the applicant has independently produced and not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal. Such evidence, if provided, should only be used to bolster and help establish the foundational premise for the Trailblazer application. All preliminary data must be clearly marked and limited to one-half page which may include one figure. Applications including data more than one-half page or more than one figure, will be considered noncompliant with the FOA instructions. Figures containing published data must include citations within the figure legend. Published data that is included in the research plan, biographical sketch or elsewhere in the application must be cited adjacent to each occurrence. Data that is published must be unambiguously identified as such within the application. References and data from widely-available preprints that have a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) are acceptable