FY27 GLIA-CTN Community Award

Award Purpose: The GLIA-CTN Community Award is intended to encourage continued network growth, diverse membership, and an expanded leukodystrophy workforce by providing investigators external to the GLIA-CTN with in-kind infrastructure support for novel projects. Award recipients will work closely with the GLIA-CTN Biomedical Informatics and Statistical Core (BISC) to refine data collection and management plans, and will benefit from generous access to GLIA-CTN data and/or samples, as well as consultation and support by GLIA-CTN staff with expertise in data management, database design, outcome development and validation, regulatory affairs, etc.

A full-length copy of the RFA is available here.

Application Deadline: Applications are currently being accepted on a rolling basis. 

Number of Awards: At least one GLIA-CTN Career Development Pilot Project Award will be funded annually. Multiple awards may be granted during a single funding period at the discretion of the GLIA-CTN Career Development and Pilot Project Committee, as permitted by available funding.     

Funding Period: Support will be provided for a one-year project beginning no later than September 1, 2026.

Level of Support: Awardees will receive up to one (1) year of in-kind support from the GLIA-CTN, including ad hoc virtual consultation meetings and regular email correspondence with the assigned administrative and/or technical contacts within the GLIA-CTN.

Eligibility Criteria: Candidates for the award must have a doctoral degree within the health professions (e.g., MD, DO, DDS, DMD, OD, DC, PharmD) and be actively affiliated with a US-based academic and/or health care institution. Individuals with degrees in nursing research and/or practice, who are licensed to practice clinically, may be eligible. There are also certain circumstances in which individuals with a PhD may be eligible, outlined below. 

Innovative, early-stage applications addressing key knowledge gaps that are without evidence of alternate means of funding (i.e., “high-risk/high-yield”) are encouraged. 

Eligible applications will meet the following key criteria.

  1. The application must relate to a specific established leukodystrophy (Vanderver et al., Mol Genet Metab. 2015; doi: 10.1016/j.ymgme.2015.01.006);
  2. All projects must be performed using patient samples, imaging and/or clinical data. Please contact the GLIA-CTN to assess that the proposal is responsive to the overall structure of the Rare Disease Clinical Research Network prior to submission;
  3. The applicant must demonstrate willingness to collaborate with the GLIA-CTN in a sustainable way, including adoption of centralized/standardized data collection tools managed by the GLIA-CTN Biomedical Informatics and Statistical Core (BISC);
  4. Applicants holding a PhD only must demonstrate integration with the clinical team at their site.
  5. The applicant must describe scientific methods that demonstrate adequate rigor and replication to translate the proposed research project into future clinical studies (i.e., description of alternative approaches or “Go/No-Go” criteria).
Applications should also meet the following feasibility criteria.

  • The applicant must demonstrate approval by their local Institutional Review Board (IRB) and, if appropriate, their Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUC) prior to accepting award funding. 
  • For pilot projects involving interventional approaches, the application must include a protocol synopsis and evidence of submission to appropriate regulatory bodies prior to submission.
International Applicants: Please note that this time, only US-based investigators are eligible to apply for a GLIA-CTN Community Award. We hope to be able to include international applicants in future award cycles. In the meantime, alternative support mechanisms may be available to support international researchers interested in proposing a new project or collaborating on an existing project within one of the key disease areas outlined in Appendix A of the full RFA, available here.

Institutional Commitment: Successful applications will include an institutional letter of support outlining matching funding and resource allocation for the creation of a Leukodystrophy Center. Please see Section VII (Eligibility Criteria) for details.    

Resource Utilization: Applications that include a plan to leverage central GLIA-CTN resources in one or more of the following ways will be prioritized: 

  • Use of existing phenotype and longitudinal natural history previously collected through the consortium’s central repository, known as the Myelin Disorders Biorepository Project (MDBP); 
  • Use of banked and/or prospectively collected biospecimen obtained by one or more clinical research centers currently participating in the GLIA-CTN; 
  • Inclusion of one or more GLIA-CTN Principal and/or Site Investigators in project design and/or execution; 
  • Interaction with and/or support from disease-specific patient advocacy organization(s). 
Reporting Requirements: Standard reporting requirements include the following.

  • An interim progress report will be expected at six (6 )months following award, and a final report will be expected at twelve (12) months following award. 
  • Publication in the form of an abstract at a national or international meeting or submission of a manuscript for publication is expected within twelve (12) months of completion of the award. 
  • The awardee is encouraged to attend, and be prepared to discuss their career development project, at the GLIA-CTN Annual Instigator Meeting in Summer 2026, as well as the next GLIA Scientific Meeting in Spring 2027.
Data Sharing Requirements: IRB/IACUC protocols must include language that permits protected health information (PHI) to be shared with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and with the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) Data Management and Coordinating Center (DMCC) designated by the National Institutes of Health.

Suggested Application Structure: The GLIA-CTN Career Development and Pilot Project Committee recommends the following application structure.

  • Project Proposal (2-3 Pages): Background, Innovation, Approach (inc. Specific Aims, Preliminary Data and Methods), Project Timeline, and Future Directions;
  • Bibliography 
  • Biosketch*
 *In standard NIH format per https://grants.nih.gov/grants/forms/biosketch.htm. 

Review Criteria: The following criteria will be considered during the review process.

  • Does the application meet the eligibility requirements?
  • Have efforts been made to connect with leaders in advocacy organization(s) related to the disease(s) of focus in the application, or is there a clearly outlined plan to do so? 
  • Does the proposed research have the potential to improve care of patients?
  • Are the aims well defined?
  • Is the approach innovative?
  • Are the methods appropriate?
  • Will the collected data answer the stated aims? 
  • Is this project expected to enable early feasibility studies for new natural history studies?
Review Criteria: All applications will undergo the following two-stage process..

  • Applicants will submit a first-round application for review by the GLIA-CTN Career Development Committee. Feedback will be provided to all applicants. 
  • Applicants with strong proposals will be invited to incorporate the Committee’s feedback and submit a revised application for a second round of review?
Review Criteria: Proposals focused on leukodystrophies listed in Appendix A will be given priority. Applicants interested in conditions not included on the list below should contact the GLIA-CTN Career Development Committee before submitting a new application. 

Questions: Questions regarding the application requirements, submission guidelines, etc. may be directed to GLIA-CTN Administrative Director, Omar Sherbini, MPH at email@theglia.org or 215-590-3068.