Infectious Disease Drug Development and Molecular Pharmacology – DCAI (81)
The Infectious Disease Drug Development and Molecular Pharmacology (DCAI (81)) study section reviews grant applications focused on the development and optimization of novel therapeutic agents, therapeutic combinations, or repurposed therapeutics, to combat bacterial, fungal, parasitic, and viral (excluding HIV) infectious disease agents. It considers applications using biochemical, pharmacological, biophysical, computational, structural, cell-based, animal, organ-on-a-chip, and human tissue model approaches.
Review Dates
Topics
- Early-stage optimization of therapeutic leads, including small molecule inhibitors, natural compounds, therapeutic peptides, and adjuvant therapies directly inhibiting the pathogen’s lifecycle
- Molecular characterization of anti-infective agents, including mechanism of action, structural characterization, and confirmation of target engagement for lead optimization
- Molecular characterization of drug combination regimens and repurposed drugs
- Development and optimization of novel assays and models to test drug efficacy, including organ-on-a-chip, in vitro and ex-vivo human tissue models, and computational model systems (artificial intelligence, machine learning)
- Early drug toxicity and pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic studies
Shared Interests and Overlaps
There are substantial shared interests in early-stage drug characterization with Drug Discovery and Molecular Pharmacology A (DMPA). Applications that emphasize initial discovery methods may be reviewed in DMPA, whereas applications that emphasize optimization of lead therapeutics may be reviewed in DCAI (81).
- There are shared interests in early-stage optimization of therapeutic leads with Discovery and Optimization of Immunotherapeutics and Biological Therapeutics [DCAI (82)]. Applications that focus on the optimization of immunotherapies and biological therapeutics may be reviewed in DCAI (82), whereas applications that focus on the optimization of other agents may be reviewed in DCAI (81).
- There are shared interests in drug development with Advancing Therapeutics B (ATB). Applications that emphasize late-stage drug development efforts such as diversification, optimization and preclinical toxicity and pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic studies may be reviewed in ATB. Applications that emphasize early-stage drug optimization and characterization of mechanism of action may be reviewed in DCAI (81).
- There are shared interests in the early stages of anti-infective therapeutic drug development with Chemical Synthesis & Biosynthesis (CSB). Applications that emphasize synthetic and biosynthetic approaches with limited biological assessments may be reviewed in CSB. Applications that couple synthetic approaches with extensive biological analyses may be reviewed in DCAI (81).
