NJIT Implementation of Recent Executive Orders
New Investigator Gateway Awards for Collaborative T1D Research (R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
Funding Agency:
- National Institutes of Health
The Gateway Award in T1D research supports New Investigators and Early Stage Investigators who are interested in pursuing careers in T1D, including qualified researchers from diverse scientific backgrounds. The goal of the program is to provide support for high quality innovative and significant research by junior faculty engaged in basic, translational and clinical research that will firmly establish the awardees in a T1D-oriented career path and set the stage for competitive first R01 submissions.
A second key feature of the Gateway program is the opportunity it provides for awardees to enhance their careers through networking with investigators currently engaged in specific T1D-oriented research networks, trials and consortia. Given this feature, research to be supported should address significant barriers in T1D research that fit conceptually within the scope and goals of one of the consortia listed below.
The Human Islet Research Network (HIRN): The Human Islet Research Network (HIRN; www.hirnetwork.org) supports collaborative research into the loss of functional beta cell mass in type 1 diabetes (T1D). HIRN’s overall mission is to better understand how human beta cells are lost in T1D, and to find innovative strategies to protect or replace functional beta cell mass in people with T1D. The HIRN program is configured as a modular network of research consortia, each defined by a specific set of research priorities.
The four current HIRN consortia include:
(1) The Consortium on Beta Cell Death and Survival (HIRN-CBDS) that is using human cells and tissues to discover highly specific biomarkers of beta cell injury in asymptomatic T1D and developing strategies to stop beta cell destruction early in the disease process;
(2) The Human Pancreas Analysis Consortium (HIRN-HPAC) that is investigating the physical and functional organization of the human islet tissue environment, the cell-cell relationships within the pancreatic tissue ecosystem, and the contributions of non-endocrine components (acinar, ductal, vascular, perivascular, neuronal, lymphatic, immune) to islet cell function and dysfunction.
(3) The Consortium on Modeling Autoimmune Diabetes (HIRN-CMAD) that supports the development of in vitro and in vivo models of type 1 diabetes (T1D) to enable studies of human T1D pathophysiology and to serve as platforms for preclinical assessments of new T1D interventions.
(4) The Pancreas Knowledgebase Program (HIRN-PanKbase) that is developing a centralized resource of the human pancreas for diabetes research that will provide access to deeply curated high-quality datasets, knowledge in computable forms, and advanced data science tools and workflows; and enable open and reproducible multidisciplinary collaboration toward accelerating biomarker and therapeutic target development.
Research opportunities that could be pursued in collaboration with HIRN consortia include, but are not limited to:
- Using human islets and pancreatic tissues to identify components of the beta cell and its environment required for maintenance and function and/or instrumental in its pathogenic destruction;
- Identifying therapeutic targets of early disease to prevent the development of a fully developed autoimmune response, or to protect and replenish residual beta cell mass in at-risk or recently-diagnosed individuals;
- Using humanized in vivo models for exploration of the T1D pathogenesis and/or to test potential therapies;
- Developing a biomimetic system that will allow for the exploration of immune?beta cell interactions;
- Developing immune-cell engineering strategies to enhance or restore glycemic control.
- Identifying novel biomarkers of T1D or developing synthetic reporter systems to monitor disease initiation, progression and response to therapy; and
- Developing methods for the non-invasive measurement of beta cell mass or function that may be used as endpoints in studies of preventing or ameliorating T1D.
- Studying how human genetics and environmental perturbations interact to contribute to T1D pathogenesis and the heterogeneity of clinical responses to interventions;
- Designing and validating workflows that can be integrated into the PanKbase analytical library, enhancing its capabilities, reproducibility, and usability for researchers.
- Developing use cases for PanKbase resources to map molecular and mechanistic processes underlying T1D etiology, pathology, and prognosis, and to identify composite biomarkers.
- Creating advanced AI models and intelligent agents for information and knowledge extraction. Leveraging prior knowledge to augment and improve the training of AI models on multimodal T1D pancreas datasets.
Applications may request budgets of up to $100,000 in direct costs per year for up to two years.
June 26, 2025 and March 06, 2026
Olivier Blondel, Ph.D. (for HIRN-related inquiries)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 301-451-7344
Email: blondelo@nih.gov
Lisa Spain, Ph.D. (for TrialNet-related inquiries)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 301-451-9871
Email: lisa.spain@nih.gov
Beena Akolkar, Ph.D. (for TEDDY-related inquiries)
National Institute of Diabetesand Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 240-593-1733
Email: beena.akolkar@nih.gov
Teresa Jones, MD (for CARE-T1D and DFC)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Telephone: 301-435-2966
Email: jonest@nih.gov
Vicki Shanmugam, MBBS, MRCP, FACR, CCD
Director, Office of Autoimmune Disease Research
Office of Research on Women's Health