Assay Development and Screening for Discovery of Validated Chemical Hits for Brain Disorders (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) (PAR-23-168)

The overarching goal of this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to support the development and validation of screening assays for the discovery of validated hits that can be used in future drug discovery/development efforts for identifying potential drug candidates for the treatment of mental illness. For purposes of this initiative, a “hit” is defined as a compound that has the desired activity in a compound screen and whose activity is confirmed upon retesting in orthogonal assays.

Stages of discovery research covered by this NOFO include 1) assay development; 2) primary screen implementation to identify initial screening hits (high throughput target-focused screens, or moderate throughput screens); and 3) hit validation using a series of assays and initial medicinal chemistry inspection to prioritize the hit set.