Animal and Biological Material Resource Centers (P40) (Clinical Trials Not-Allowed) | RFA OD 23 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA OD 23 001

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is soliciting applications under the Animal and Biological Material Resource Centers (P40) program (Clinical Trials Not Allowed), funding opportunity number RFA-OD-23-001 (CFDA 93.351). This grant mechanism supports the creation, expansion, and continuation of centralized resource centers that provide high-value animal and biological materials to the broader biomedical research community. The basic idea is to fund shared infrastructure and curated resources that many investigators can rely on, rather than funding a single research project. These centers are expected to serve users locally, regionally, and nationally, and to operate as dependable, well-managed hubs that help many different research programs move faster and with better consistency.

The resources envisioned under this opportunity are broad and can include special colonies of laboratory animals as well as non-animal biological materials and enabling tools. Examples specifically highlighted include informatics tools, reagents, cultures such as cells, tissues, and organs, and genetic stocks. In practical terms, a supported center might maintain and distribute unique animal strains, provide standardized cell lines or tissues with strong documentation, manage databases or informatics platforms that help researchers find and use materials correctly, and implement quality control systems that ensure what is shipped and used is what it claims to be. The emphasis is on resources that are difficult for individual laboratories to maintain on their own, but that become highly efficient and impactful when maintained as a shared, professionally managed service.

A central goal of this FOA is to strengthen scientific rigor, transparency, and experimental reproducibility across biomedical research. That focus signals that NIH is looking for centers that do more than simply store and ship materials. Competitive applications typically align with practices that reduce variability and increase confidence in results, such as strong provenance records, standardized operating procedures, authentication and contamination testing where appropriate, clear phenotyping and genotyping practices for animal stocks, robust data management, and transparent user guidance on how materials were derived, characterized, handled, and quality-checked. The overarching expectation is that these centers will help researchers generate results that can be replicated and compared across laboratories because the underlying materials and associated metadata are consistent and well controlled.

Programmatically, proposed centers must have broad relevance across multiple NIH Institutes or Centers (ICs), reflecting the NIH-wide mission of the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP). In other words, the resource should not be narrowly tailored to a single disease area or a single institute's priorities. The center should be positioned as enabling infrastructure that benefits many biomedical domains and a wide user base. This FOA is also explicitly designed to support both the continuation of existing resources (for centers that are already operating and serving the community) and the development of new resources when there is a clear need and strong rationale.

NIH strongly encourages prospective applicants to consult with ORIP scientific and research staff before preparing an application. This is presented as an important step to confirm that the proposed resource plans fit the program, that the concept is aligned with ORIP priorities, and that the application is likely to be competitive. In practice, these consultations can help clarify questions like whether the planned user community is sufficiently broad, whether the proposed resource duplicates existing national capabilities, what kinds of governance and access policies NIH expects, and how to frame sustainability and operations in a way that matches P40 expectations.

Eligibility is broad across many U.S.-based organization types. Eligible applicants include state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); small businesses; and other eligible entities listed in the FOA. The opportunity also calls out additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, AANAPISI institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, eligible agencies of the federal government, and U.S. territories or possessions.

At the same time, the FOA draws a clear line around foreign participation. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply as the applicant organization, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed, meaning a U.S. applicant may include certain foreign collaborations or activities that meet NIH definitions and requirements, even though a foreign organization cannot be the primary applicant.

Administratively, the funding instrument is a grant, and the activity category is health. The application due date shown is January 7, 2026. The FOA title explicitly states "Clinical Trials Not Allowed," which means applications should not propose clinical trials as part of the work supported by this award. The supported activities are focused on building, operating, improving, and disseminating research resources and the accompanying procedures, documentation, and services that make those resources reliable and broadly usable by the research community.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as NIH support for shared, high-impact research infrastructure: centers that collect, generate, maintain, characterize, and distribute animal colonies and other biological materials, along with the data systems and quality practices needed to make those resources dependable. The strongest alignment is with proposals that demonstrate broad multi-IC relevance, a clear national or regional user community, strong operational and quality management plans, and a direct contribution to improving rigor and reproducibility in biomedical research.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Animal and Biological Material Resource Centers (P40) (Clinical Trials Not-Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.351.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-01-09.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2026-01-07. (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.

Apply for RFA OD 23 001

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