Slots: 1
Deadlines
Internal Deadline: Friday, July 18th, 2025, 5pm PT
LOI: September 16, 2025
External Deadline: October 17, 2025
Award Information
Award Type: Cooperative Agreement
Estimated Number of Awards: 1
Anticipated Award Amount: $16.56 million
Who May Serve as PI: Standard NIH requirements
Link to Award: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-AG-26-003.html
Process for Limited Submissions
PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure (RII) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/. Use the template provided here: RII Limited Submission Applicant Template
Materials to submit include:
- (1) Two-Page Proposal Summary (1” margins; single-spaced; standard font type, e.g. Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 2-page limit will be excluded from review. You must use the template linked above.
- (2) CV – (5 pages maximum)
Note: The portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.
Purpose
A National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) is to serve NIA as:
1) a national data resource, collecting data from the ADRCs and their affiliated data and sample repositories;
2) a facilitator of current and future research on AD/ADRD; and
3) the central hub for organizing and enabling communication within and outside the ADRC program, including annual meetings and steering committees.
The goal of the overall ADRC program is to serve as major sources of discovery regarding the nature of AD/ADRD and the development of more effective approaches to prevention, diagnosis, care, and therapy. The ADRCs contribute significantly to the development of shared resources that support dementia-relevant research, and they collaborate to coordinate their research efforts with other NIH-funded programs and investigators. They also provide substantial support to increase the number of researchers engaged in these fields through a variety of research and infrastructure activities.
Structure
NACC will include the following three teams: Administrative, Database and Computing, and Research and Consulting.
Administrative Team
NACC will financially and logistically support semiannual in-person meetings, including support for outside speakers.
NACC will support a wide variety of communication functions for the overall ADRC program, including the following:
- Serve as the point of contact for NIA, other NIA funded Centers and programs, and the broader scientific community, including the Research Coordinating Center Network (RCCN).
- Provide a user-friendly web interface to serve the lay public as well as ADRCs and other investigators wishing to access ADRC clinical, neuropathological, neuroimaging, and biomarker data. The website should provide documentation such as coding guidebooks and data dictionaries as well as forms and instructions.
- Conduct outreach activities to raise awareness of the availability of the data, including providing database training and support instructional webinars that bring new users to the data.
- Track usage of the website and data resources, maintain a library of ADRC program activities, and follow up to early career investigator awards.
- Maintain and update, as needed, interest group and Core Leader communications, support core steering committee elections, and organize and coordinate steering committee activities.
- Maintain and regularly update the ADRC personnel directory.
Support the following additional administrative activities:
- Solicit and support the review process and funding for peer-reviewed Early Career Investigator projects utilizing NACC data and affiliated resources.
- Support subcontracts with each of the ADRCs to enable availability of rapid multi-center/national efforts and ensure timely and efficient data submission.
- Ensure that copyrights for any assessment tools allow for broad sharing of the tools as well as the resulting data.
- Ensure that data use agreements and safeguards are in place to prevent inadvertent release of personally identifiable information (PII).
- Provide timely responses to inquiries from interested researchers.
- Provide administrative support for the NACC Steering Committee, External Advisory Committee, Clinical Task Force, and collaborative activities as described below.
- Prepare, conduct and analyze survey data as requested by Steering committees.
- Plan for and advance future research needs for the ADRC program through the collaborative activities as described below.
Database and Computing Team
The Database and Computing Team will be responsible for ensuring the quality and accessibility of data, both for ADRC submission and for outside researcher access, as follows:
- Maintain high standards of data quality for all new and existing NACC data.
- Use modern database structures and functions, including streamlining of data submission and access processes, expanding version control, and developing automated processes for users.
- Provide high-security-compliant, high-capacity informatics infrastructure suitable for data integration, storage, management, and sharing and ensure that the data meet findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) principles.
- Support collection and facilitate availability of digital biomarker data, as available and connected to other data on each participant.
- Support collection of a standard set of imaging data as described by the ADRC Imaging Steering Committee, and coordinate with SCAN to analyze and provide data from images collected across the ADRCs (e.g., obtain segmented volumes for existing MRIs).
- Implement and utilize global unique identifiers (GUID) collection throughout the ADRC program, facilitate deidentified submission to NACC and integration into the NACC database, and coordinate with other related data and sample resources such as NIAGADS and NCRAD.
- Manage continuous improvements and expedite data distribution, e.g., quick access full data download for users.
- Provide advanced online query and data visualization capabilities, investigator training, and instructions for data access.
- Provide a plan for receiving and storing other imaging and biomarker assay data (in anticipation of future NIA, Clinical Task Force (CTF), or NACC Steering Committee directives).
- Augment the ability to include legacy and other non-UDS data (currently held at individual sites) from participants already included in the national database, particularly access to item-level data.
- Enhance and support data harmonization and integration with other NIA-funded programs (e.g., SCAN, NCRAD), as well as linkages with administrative data sources.
As a national data resource, NACC must foster communication and collaborative activities within and across ADRCs and interact with other connected national resources, including:
- The National Centralized Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (NCRAD) to allow samples from the ADRCs to be connected with the data at NACC.
- The National Institute on Aging Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) and the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC) to connect genetic information with other participant data.
- Standardized Centralized Alzheimer’s Neuroimaging (SCAN) to develop standardized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) neuroimaging protocols at participating ADRCs, then harmonizing this neuroimaging data so that it can be shared and used by the scientific community. NACC will be responsible for the collection and management of new neuroimaging data by creating a repository, ensuring its integrity, and providing qualified investigators access to the neuroimaging data and any associated non-neuroimaging data.
Research and Consulting Team
- Promote and conduct research using NACC data.
- Develop statistical/research methodology important to the research field.
- Facilitate standardization of data collection and sharing processes throughout the ADRC program, where deemed appropriate by NIA and the NACC Steering Committee.
- Provide monthly and annual data summaries to individual ADRCs and to NIA; seek novel ways to communicate and display summary information.
- Plan to support data evaluations for future recommended changes to UDS or added data and data types to be collected.
- Provide in-depth consultation to researchers interested in utilizing the NACC data for research questions.
- Support planning and consultation for potential future ADRC applicants.
Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.