Vanderbilt-wide Limited Submission Opportunity: NIAID Centers for HIV Structural Biology; deadline is June 10

This is a joint competition for VU and VUMC investigators. All investigators should follow these instructions.

Vanderbilt (VU+VUMC) may submit one application to the NIH NIAID Centers for HIV Structural Biology (U54 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) program.

The purpose of this FOA is to support dynamic, multidisciplinary consortia of structural biologists, virologists, and computational scientists to resolve complex biological structures relevant to HIV prevention, treatment, and cure. The consortia are expected to leverage common resources, facilitate new collaborations, and engage and support the next generation of HIV structural biology researchers.

The goal of the Centers for HIV Structural Biology program will be to support teams of scientists to develop and utilize cutting edge technologies and methodologies to address the most challenging scientific questions involving the structures and functions of HIV-related macromolecular complexes. Centers are expected to move beyond the determination of static structures and into an understanding of the dynamics of complexes with an eye toward informing mechanistically based discovery and/or design of interventions for the prevention, treatment, and cure of HIV. The development of specific interventions is not the purpose of the FOA; rather, the goal is to establish new technologies and methodologies to facilitate the discovery of new therapeutic targets, elucidate the mechanisms of action of interventions, or determine the structural basis for interventional failures.

Special emphasis should be placed upon those known components of the virus and/or host for which a sufficiently complete structure has yet to be determined. Restriction factors and viral proteins that counteract their function remain of interest, as well as newly recognized factors that contribute to the establishment or maintenance of viral latency, which may represent potential therapeutic targets to effect a cure. With this FOA an emphasis is placed on current poorly characterized categories of complexes that are critical to the virus life cycle, including RNA, RNA/protein, DNA/protein, and protein/membrane interactions. For all the above molecules and complexes, integration of structure with validation strategies, including virological, biochemical, and computational, is essential to understanding their biological functions. The research being proposed is expected to push the boundaries of what is feasible. As such, it is recognized that aspects of the Research Plan will necessarily be of high risk.

Research Objectives and Scope:

Unlike previous iterations of this Centers program, each Center should not have just one, centralized scientific theme in which it specializes. Rather, for this FOA, each Center should be built around three to four diverse scientific projects in which innovative technological approaches will be applied to solve distinct scientific questions that address knowledge gaps of significance to one or more NIAID research priorities related to HIV prevention, treatment, or cure. The research plans will need to be dynamic and adaptable to evolve as new data become available. Importantly, the scientific areas of specialization need not be directly related to one another; rather, they should leverage the best talents and technologies of the team to address the most challenging, compelling, and pertinent scientific problems related to HIV prevention, treatment, and cure.

• Each Center must have demonstrated capabilities for the determination of high-resolution structures of macromolecular complexes.
• Centers must be engaged in basic and applied research supporting NIAID priorities of HIV prevention, treatment, and cure.
• Centers may include all aspects of structural biology related to HIV, including structural determination, dynamics and functional characterization of macromolecular complexes among and between components of HIV, the host cell, the immune system, and therapeutic, preventative, or curative interventions.

See the solicitation for more information.

Internal Application Process:

Anyone interested in being considered as Vanderbilt’s potential nominee must submit the following (in a single PDF) to LSO@vanderbilt.edu by 5 p.m. on June 10. 

• Brief (2-page maximum) research plan including summary budget
• Proposed list of Vanderbilt key personnel and collaborators
• NIH Biosketch or 5-page CV for each PI/PD
• Statement of support from department chair/center director

Any questions about this opportunity or the LSO process may be directed to LSO@vanderbilt.edu