Using Omics to Define Human Placental Development and Function Across Pregnancy (R21) | RFA HD 16 037

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA HD 16 037

Using Omics to Define Human Placental Development and Function Across Pregnancy (R21) (Funding Opportunity Number: RFA-HD-16-037) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) discretionary grant opportunity focused on building detailed, pregnancy-spanning "omics" profiles of the human placenta. The central scientific aim is to support research that captures how placental development and function change across gestation using modern, high-throughput approaches such as genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and related multi-omics strategies. The emphasis is not simply on generating isolated datasets, but on creating coherent profiles that reflect the placenta's biology over time, with enough contextual information to make the findings meaningful and reusable.

A major goal of the announcement is to produce a community resource, meaning the resulting data, research resources, and associated metadata are expected to be broadly shared and made available to the wider research community. The opportunity is positioned as a foundation-building effort: by standardizing and expanding omics-based reference profiles of placental development across pregnancy, the program aims to accelerate downstream work by other investigators. In practical terms, the intention is to generate large, complex datasets that other teams can reanalyze, integrate with complementary datasets, and use as benchmarks for new hypotheses about placental biology, pregnancy complications, and maternal-fetal health.

The FOA also highlights an explicit translational motivation: these shared omics resources are meant to support integration with emerging technologies that could enable safe, real-time assessment of the placenta in vivo. While the funded projects themselves may be primarily focused on generating omics profiles and resource-level datasets, the program is designed to help push the field toward better tools and approaches for monitoring placental health during pregnancy, potentially improving understanding and detection of placental dysfunction as it develops.

This is an R21 mechanism, which generally supports exploratory or developmental research projects, often used to establish feasibility, generate preliminary datasets, and create enabling resources that can justify larger follow-on studies. The listed award ceiling is $200,000, and the original closing date for applications was 2015-12-18 (with the FOA created on 2015-09-17). The program is categorized under Health, Income Security and Social Services, and is associated with CFDA number 93.865.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S. organizations and institutions. Eligible applicants include state, county, city, and special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other Native American tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status (excluding institutions of higher education in those nonprofit categories as stated); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) and small businesses; and other entities. The FOA also explicitly calls out additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISI), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, U.S. territories or possessions, and even non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations). This broad eligibility aligns with the community-resource theme, encouraging participation from a wide range of research environments and populations.

Overall, the opportunity is best understood as an NIH effort to catalyze a shared, data-rich reference framework for human placental biology across pregnancy, emphasizing omics-based profiling, strong accompanying metadata, and broad dissemination so that the resulting resources can be reused, combined with new technologies, and leveraged to speed progress in placental research and maternal-fetal health outcomes.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Using Omics to Define Human Placental Development and Function Across Pregnancy (R21)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.865.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2015-09-17.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2015-12-18. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $200,000.00 in funding.
• 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 HD 16 037

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