Precision Nutrition in IBD

Request for Proposals (RFP)

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation has identified the need to understand how diet affects IBD, particularly at the individual patient level, as a critical gap in the understanding and management of IBD, and as an area of opportunity to make a significant impact on the quality of life of patients. The long-term goal of the Precision Nutrition initiative is to be able to answer the IBD patient’s key question, “what should I eat,”  based on the patient’s personal response to different foods, so that diets can be tailored to the individual clinical, biological and lifestyle characteristics of the patient.

The program is made possible through a generous donation from Jonathan D. Rose, MD, PhD, Chair, Intestinal Pathology Research Program.

Scope

P​​​​​​roposals submitted to this RFP should focus on one or both of the following approaches to advance the emerging field of precision nutrition in IBD:   

1. Patient-based prospective studies to identify signatures and/or mechanisms of response to food in IBD patients and their correlation with disease outcomes.  These studies will integrate one or more ‘omics’ derived data together with physical activity, food/food component(s) challenge, and clinical outcomes, in order to identify and measure the response of patients to different beneficial or deleterious food/food component(s) exposures.  

2. Preclinical model-based studies to identify signatures and/or mechanisms of response to food and their correlation to IBD pathophysiological readouts. Preclinical studies utilizing state of the art humanized in vitro and/or in vivo IBD models will identify biological responses to food/food component(s) challenge and their mechanisms of action (MoA); by integrating humanized model-derived ‘omics’  data related to food/food component(s) challenge and their correlation with  relevant IBD pathophysiological readouts. 

Multidisciplinary proposals that incorporate both approaches, patient-based prospective studies and preclinical MoA studies, are highly encouraged.   

It is expected that at the end of the funding period, these studies will provide significant advances to inform future evidence-based design of precision nutrition interventional clinical trials.

Funding Terms

Option 1 – Individual agreement  

The Foundation will grant 3 independent awards for 3 years with a maximum budget of $320,000 per year/per project, inclusive of all direct and indirect expenses.  The proposal can be submitted by a multicenter consortium or by an individual research group. 

Option 2 – Collaboration agreement 

To leverage the expertise and resources of the multidisciplinary research teams, and to maximize the use of the funds, the Foundation may select several complementary studies, among the selected investigators and negotiate a collaboration agreement. In this case, a 1 year funding of $160,000  will be allocated for a pilot study, integrating the complementary study arms, to provide the grounds for a revised harmonized multi-center proposal, for additional three-year period with a budget of up to $900,000 per year, inclusive of all direct and indirect expenses.  

Progress Oversight: The Foundation will follow the progress of the individual or collaborative projects through oversight meetings to ensure harmonization of research efforts, effective funding utilization, and successful achievement of milestones.

Application Process

Key Dates

Before submitting a Letter of Intent (LOI) or a Full Proposal, please read the RFP's guidelines and policies. All submissions should be done via proposalCENTRAL (https://proposalcentral.altum.com). Please refer to Appendices A and B of the RFP guidelines for detailed instructions for electronic submission.