Academic-Industrial Partnerships (AIP) to Translate and Validate In Vivo Imaging Systems (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) | PAR 20 155

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 20 155

The Academic-Industrial Partnerships (AIP) to Translate and Validate In Vivo Imaging Systems (R01 Clinical Trial Optional) funding opportunity (PAR 20-155) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) discretionary grant program designed to push promising imaging-related innovations out of the lab and closer to real-world biomedical use. Its central goal is to accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries and engineering advances in in vivo imaging systems, imaging-adjacent data science, and/or spectroscopic technologies into practical methods or tools that can help researchers and clinicians better understand disease biology and improve how diseases are assessed. While cancer is a key emphasis, the scope also includes other diseases, as long as the proposed work addresses important needs in understanding fundamental biology, assessing the risk of disease development, supporting diagnosis, guiding treatment decisions, and/or determining disease status over time.

A defining feature of the FOA is its focus on academic-industrial collaboration. The program is structured to encourage partnerships that combine academic strengths (basic discovery science, early-stage technology development, access to specialized models, and hypothesis-driven validation) with industry strengths (engineering for robustness, manufacturability, usability, quality systems, product development discipline, and pathways toward deployment). Projects are expected to be translational in nature, meaning they should move beyond concept-only demonstrations and instead show credible progress toward validation and practical adoption of imaging systems or related analytical pipelines. The mention of “translate and validate” signals that applicants should be thinking about performance testing, reproducibility, benchmarking against existing approaches, and demonstrating that a technology works reliably in relevant biological settings, rather than only showing a one-off proof of principle.

Technically, the FOA supports work spanning imaging hardware, imaging agents or probes when relevant to system performance, acquisition strategies, computation and analytics (including modern data science approaches), and spectroscopic methods that can provide molecular or functional readouts in vivo. The overall intent is to solve contemporary biomedical problems where imaging and associated quantitative analysis can provide information that is otherwise difficult to obtain. Depending on the project, this can include improving sensitivity or specificity, enabling earlier detection, monitoring response to therapy, characterizing tumor microenvironment features, quantifying disease burden, or producing robust biomarkers derived from imaging or spectroscopic signals.

The award mechanism is the NIH R01 research project grant, with “Clinical Trial Optional” indicating that applicants may propose clinical trials if they are appropriate for the technology and the stage of translation, but a clinical trial is not required. This flexibility accommodates a range of project maturities, from advanced preclinical validation through to early clinical evaluation, provided the work remains aligned with the FOA’s translational and validation objectives.

Eligibility is broad and intentionally inclusive. In addition to typical NIH applicant organizations such as public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits, and for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), eligible applicants include state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; and federally recognized Native American tribal governments as well as tribal organizations that are not federally recognized. The FOA also explicitly calls out a wide range of additional eligible entities, including Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions; Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs); 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-U.S. (foreign) organizations. This wide net reflects NIH’s interest in bringing diverse institutional capabilities into imaging translation, including organizations with unique community, clinical, geographic, or technical resources.

From the source information provided, the program is associated with CFDA numbers 93.242, 93.286, 93.394, and 93.395, which correspond to NIH funding areas that commonly include cancer and broader biomedical research activities. The FOA was created on March 30, 2020, and the original closing date listed is September 7, 2022. No award ceiling or expected number of awards is specified in the provided data, which often means applicants need to refer to the full FOA text and NIH institute/center guidance for typical budget expectations and anticipated funding levels.

In practical terms, a strong application under this FOA would generally be expected to (1) identify an important unmet biomedical need where in vivo imaging or spectroscopy can make a measurable difference, (2) describe a technology that is sufficiently mature to benefit from targeted translational work, (3) lay out a clear validation plan with quantitative performance metrics and comparison baselines, and (4) demonstrate that the academic and industry partners together have the expertise and resources to engineer, test, and de-risk the system in a way that supports eventual broader adoption in research or clinical settings.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Academic-Industrial Partnerships (AIP) to Translate and Validate In Vivo Imaging Systems (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.242, 93.286, 93.394, 93.395.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2020-03-30.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-09-07. (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.

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