home Air and Air Quality, Infectious Diseases, Microbiology NIAID seeks comments and suggestions on Tuberculosis Strategic Plan #TB #Pathogens

NIAID seeks comments and suggestions on Tuberculosis Strategic Plan #TB #Pathogens

NIH/NIAID is seeking comments on their recently released Tuberculosis Strategic Command.

See: NIAID Tuberculosis Strategic Plan Request for Information (RFI)

I have copied the announcement from the release below:

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NIAID Tuberculosis Strategic Plan Request for Information (RFI)

Purpose

This Notice is a time-sensitive Request for Information (RFI) inviting comments and suggestions on the framework for an NIAID Tuberculosis Strategic Plan. Comments must be submitted electronically in the comment boxes below and are due by July 16, 2018.

Comment fields are limited to 500 words each. We look forward to your input and hope you will share this RFI with your colleagues.

Background

In response to the U.S. Government’s alignment with the concerted global effort led by the World Health Organization (WHO) to end the tuberculosis epidemic, NIAID is developing a strategic framework to advance tuberculosis (TB) research and development for the next five years and beyond.

The NIAID TB strategic framework aims to progress five areas of research opportunity vital to advancing understanding, prevention, and treatment of TB, and highlights research gaps critical to achieving the aspirational goal of ending TB.

Areas of Research Opportunity

Fundamental Research

  • Understand the factors that determine the course of Mtb infection and progression to, and manifestation of disease, including:
    • Bacterial and host factors
    • Host-pathogen interactions
  • Understand factors that determine Mtb transmission
  • Understand the epidemiology of TB (e.g., drug-resistant TB, impact of co-infections)

Detection/Diagnosis

  • Discover novel biomarkers or biosignatures for TB diagnosis and prediction of treatment outcomes
  • Improve/develop accurate and rapid diagnostics (including point-of-care, non-sputum based, speciation, and drug-sensitivity) for all forms of TB, in all age groups

Prevention/Vaccines

  • Support discovery, design, development, and evaluation of novel vaccine candidates, antigen/adjuvant combinations, and delivery approaches to:
    • Prevent activation of latent Mtb infection
    • Prevent new Mtb infections
    • Enhance the breadth/durability of protective immune responses
  • Identify correlates of immune protection
  • Discover, develop, and/or improve interventions that interfere with TB transmission

Treatment/Therapeutics

  • Discover, develop, and evaluate new and improved therapeutic interventions and regimens, including therapeutic vaccines and host-directed therapies
  • Develop improved regimens to shorten treatment duration (e.g., chemopreventative regimens for drug-resistant and drug-sensitive TB)
  • Better understand/characterize existing TB drugs (e.g., in situ pharmacokinetics/dynamics)
  • Identify strategies to rapidly assess and prevent permanent disability due to drug adverse events

Resources

  • Characterize and optimize existing animal models and develop novel animal models (along with supporting reagents) that represent the human disease state and better predict human responses to support product development
  • Develop and standardize assays and reagents to assess vaccine efficacy
  • Develop tools to assess bacillary burden in humans
  • Improve/develop resources to promote sharing of animal/clinical samples and data sets
  • Leverage and expand existing clinical and preclinical capacity to test promising vaccine candidates

See Guide Notice NOT-AI-18-043 for more information.

To ensure consideration, responses must be submitted by: July 16, 2018 11:59:59 PM EDT

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