BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) Brain Cell Data Center (U24) | RFA MH 17 215

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA MH 17 215

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity titled "BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) Brain Cell Data Center (U24)" (Funding Opportunity Number: RFA-MH-17-215) is a discretionary cooperative agreement intended to establish and operate a centralized Brain Cell Data Center (BCDC). The overall purpose is to build a web-accessible information system that can capture, store, analyze, curate, and display comprehensive data and metadata about brain cell types and their connectivity. In practical terms, the BCDC would function as a core community resource for organizing the rapidly growing and highly diverse datasets being produced by the BICCN and related efforts, with an emphasis on making the resulting resources broadly usable by researchers.

A major focus of the award is standardization and integration. The BCDC is expected to lead efforts to create and promote spatial and semantic standards that allow heterogeneous brain cell census data to be managed consistently. "Spatial" standards refer to aligning and registering data to shared anatomical reference frameworks or coordinate systems, while "semantic" standards refer to consistent terminology, metadata structures, and ontologies so that datasets generated by different groups can be searched, compared, and combined. Because brain cell census work often involves many modalities (for example, transcriptomic profiles, morphology, electrophysiology, connectivity mapping, and imaging), this FOA emphasizes an informatics backbone that can handle multimodal data types without losing context, provenance, or interpretability.

Another central requirement is the ability to register multimodal datasets to common brain coordinate systems. This means the BCDC should support workflows and tools that map data from different experiments, labs, and platforms into shared reference spaces, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons across studies and species or brain regions (as applicable). Building on that registration capability, the BCDC is also expected to produce searchable 2D and 3D digital brain atlases tailored for cell census data. These atlases are meant to help users explore where particular cell types are located, how they are distributed, and how they connect, using interfaces that make complex datasets navigable rather than locked away in siloed repositories.

Beyond hosting and visualization, the FOA calls for the creation of a unified and comprehensive brain cell knowledge base. The intent is not just to store new BICCN-generated datasets, but to integrate existing brain cell census data and related information across diverse repositories into a cohesive resource. That implies strong curation practices, robust metadata requirements, cross-repository linking, and mechanisms for harmonizing identifiers and annotations so researchers can trace cell type definitions, compare classification schemes, and reuse datasets confidently. A key theme throughout the announcement is community value: this FOA (along with three companion FOAs referenced in the description) is designed to produce a widely used brain cell census resource that serves the broader neuroscience community, not only the immediate network of funded centers.

Administratively, the award mechanism is a U24 cooperative agreement, which typically indicates substantial NIH involvement and coordination expectations compared with a standard grant. The opportunity lists an expected number of awards of 1, suggesting NIH planned to fund a single BCDC as the central hub for these activities. The original closing date for applications was 2017-01-23, and the opportunity was created on 2016-10-19. The activity categories include education and health-related areas, and it is associated with multiple CFDA numbers (93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867), reflecting NIH programmatic funding streams that can support aspects of neuroscience, mental health, and biomedical informatics.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of domestic applicants such as state, county, and city 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; tribal organizations other than federally recognized governments; public/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses. The announcement also explicitly highlights additional eligible applicant categories including Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions; Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs); Hispanic-serving Institutions; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs); faith-based or community-based organizations; eligible federal agencies; regional organizations; U.S. territories or possessions; and even non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations), indicating NIH interest in maximizing participation and leveraging expertise wherever it exists.

In short, this FOA supports a single, central data coordination and dissemination hub for the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network, with responsibilities that span data infrastructure, standards development, multimodal spatial registration, atlas-building, and knowledge-base integration. The end product is meant to be a durable, searchable, and community-facing platform that makes brain cell type and connectivity information easier to find, interpret, compare, and reuse across the neuroscience field.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) Brain Cell Data Center (U24)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-10-19.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-01-23. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• 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 MH 17 215

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