Limited Competition: Renewal of the Longevity Consortium (U19 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AG 24 017

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AG 24 017

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering a limited-competition renewal opportunity for the Longevity Consortium (LC) under the funding announcement titled "Limited Competition: Renewal of the Longevity Consortium (U19 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)." This opportunity is released as a discretionary grant program and uses a cooperative agreement mechanism, meaning the funded work will be carried out with substantial NIH program involvement compared with a typical research grant. The specific announcement number is RFA-AG-24-017, and it falls under the health-related funding activity area with CFDA number 93.866.

The Longevity Consortium itself was originally established in 2004 and is described as part of a broader set of ongoing translational efforts focused on human longevity. The consortium model supports coordinated, multi-project research aimed at identifying and moving toward translation of protective factors associated with exceptional longevity. In practical terms, the LC supports research approaches that may include genomic discovery and analysis, along with other biological or environmental factors that appear to contribute to unusually long and healthy lives. The central aim of this renewal is to continue and strengthen that collaborative infrastructure so investigators can further pinpoint protective mechanisms and set the stage for translating those insights into strategies relevant to aging and age-related health, while staying within the bounds of a program that does not support clinical trials.

The funding instrument is a U19 cooperative agreement, which is commonly used for complex, multi-component projects that benefit from coordinated management and shared cores or resources. The announcement explicitly states "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," which signals that applicants should not propose studies that meet the NIH definition of a clinical trial. Applicants should therefore frame the work as translational and human longevity-focused research without proposing interventional clinical trial designs, even if human data or human-derived samples and observational analyses are involved.

Eligibility information in the source data highlights small businesses as eligible applicants, but the announcement also includes important restrictions regarding foreign participation. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply as the applicant organization, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. At the same time, foreign components, as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed, which typically means certain elements of the research can be conducted in collaboration with foreign sites or investigators when appropriately justified and structured under NIH policy, even though the primary applicant must be domestic and meet the stated eligibility requirements.

From a funding standpoint, the opportunity lists an award ceiling of $9,000,000. The original application closing date was February 2, 2024. The announcement was created on May 10, 2023. The expected number of awards is not clearly specified in the provided source text, but the limited-competition framing suggests it may be restricted to a defined group of eligible applicants, often tied to existing program participation or specific renewal eligibility conditions described in the full announcement.

Overall, this NOFO is designed to renew a long-running NIH-supported consortium dedicated to uncovering the protective genomic and related factors linked to exceptional longevity, with an emphasis on coordinated translational research conducted through a U19 cooperative agreement structure, and with clear limitations on clinical trial activity and foreign institutional eligibility.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Limited Competition: Renewal of the Longevity Consortium (U19 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-05-10.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-02-02. (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 $9,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Small businesses.

Apply for RFA AG 24 017

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