Key Dates

Posted Date: July 15, 2025

2025 Application Due Date: Aug 31, 2025 [application should be submitted before 8:59 pm PST (11:59 pm EST); no prior approval is needed to submit the full application.]

Earliest Start Date: November 15, 2025

Future Dates: To be updated (anticipated annually)

Submission

The complete application package should be submitted as a single PDF file to [email protected].

Application Guide

Include the following items as part of the application

• Public Health Service Grant (PHS) 398: Face Page (form page 1)
• Public Health Service Grant (PHS) 398: Detailed Budget for Initial Budget Period (form page 4)
• Investigator & Key Personnel Biographical Sketch (5 page maximum each)
• Research Plan (as detailed below)
  1. Project Narrative (up to 500 words)
  2. Specific Aims (up to 1 page)
  3. Research Strategy (up to 3 pages)
• Plan to work with PanKbase (up to 2 pages)
• Human Subjects (1 page, if applicable)
• Vertebrate Animals (1 page, if applicable)
• Resource Sharing Plan (up to 2 pages)
• Data Management and Sharing Plan (up to 2 pages)
• Facility and Other Resources
• Public Health Service Grant (PHS) 398: Checklist Form Page

Foreign Organizations (2025 guideline, to be updated in future years):

• Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Organizations) are not eligible to apply.
• Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
• Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are not allowed.

Help and Support

[email protected], or, [email protected]

Purpose

PanKbase plans to offer annual pilot funding opportunities to support the timely adoption of rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science into the PanKbase platform. Awardees are expected to share all data and AI products generated through the awarded projects via the PanKbase platform and through close collaboration with the PanKbase team. The priority areas of interest will be updated annually. In 2025, two types of applications will be considered:

Partner Programs: Proposals from programs that are interested in partnering with PanKbase to enhance the interoperability and harmonization between their platforms and PanKbase, by leveraging generative AI, large language models (LLMs), and/or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).

Research Teams: Proposals from teams developing foundational models or AI agents of the pancreas with a focus on type 1 diabetes (T1D), as well as AI applications that integrate multimodal data, or enhance the usability, accessibility, or training capabilities of PanKbase.

Background

The long-term goal of PanKbase is to develop a modern data science platform that will accelerate innovation and discovery in Type 1 diabetes research. To achieve this goal, the PanKbase team believes that it is necessary to readily incorporate the latest conceptual and technological advancements in data science; and that it is important to broadly engage stakeholders and the community in design, implementation, testing and deployment of PanKbase and its products, and in developing use cases.

Objectives and Scope

Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly in Generative AI (GenAI), are opening new opportunities to transform biomedical research across multiple dimensions. In 2025, this pilot funding program calls for two types of applications:

Data-centric programs interested in developing partnerships with PanKbase

Communication and collaboration among data-centric programs can help avoid duplication, leverage complementary strengths, and maximize collective impact. Improved interoperability further enables users to more effectively utilize these resources and integrate their outputs. PanKbase is interested in building partnerships to develop shared data standards, foster interoperability, and together better address the complex, interconnected needs of different research communities. PanKbase welcomes proposals to address key challenges in such collaborations through leveraging GenAI, large language models (LLMs), and/or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Example topics include (but are not limited to):

• Development of shared T1D data and meta data standards, and Common Data Elements (CDEs).
• Development of approaches to enhance the interoperability and harmonization between other platforms and PanKbase.
• Federated data science platforms to balance between data sharing and protection.
• AI-assisted smart data generation and collection.

Research Teams

Proposals developing AI models and agents with a focus on T1D in the pancreas; AI applications that integrate multimodal data, or enhance the usability, accessibility, or training capabilities of PanKbase. Example topics include (but are not limited to):

• Multimodal data integration, mapping biological and physiological pathways, and developing molecular biomarkers.
• Single cell and spatial multi-omics integration.
• Knowledge curation and information extraction approaches that seek data efficiency and domain adaptability. Augmentation and improvement in the training of AI models using prior knowledge.
• Scalable and factually accurate knowledge graphs comprising concepts from biomedical literature.
• Knowledge graph embeddings, multimodal representation learning.
• Explainable AI, transparent inference mechanism; ethics and bias mitigation.
• AI-powered data curation and labeling tools, synthetic datasets.

Expectations

Given the limited available funds and the pilot nature of the program:

• The application should aim at developing a set of performance metrics for datasets and AI models at the “proof-of-concept” level.
• For proposals from Research Teams, collecting primary data will not be considered responsive.
• Applications proposing the purchase of GPUs will be considered not responsive.

In the up to 2-page Plan to work with PanKbase, applications should demonstrate willingness and concrete plans and timelines to coordinate with PanKbase in (depending on what is proposed) model development, model sharing, AI ethics, co-design with stakeholders, community engagement, benchmarking, or use case development. Awardees will be expected to share all data and AI products generated through the awarded projects via the PanKbase platform through a set of deliverables and milestones as part of the award.

Following review, some applicants may be invited to negotiate and refine their proposed deliverables, milestones, and timelines with PanKbase prior to finalizing awards.

Award Information

Funding Instrument: Fixed price subaward, awarded from the NIDDK Pancreas Knowledgebase (PanKbase) program via the University of California San Diego and University of Michigan.

Number of awards: PanKbase intends to fund up to 2 awards in each category.

Award Budget:

Awards to Research Teams are limited to $150,000 total costs for 1 year, including applicable F&A costs, which will be capped at 15%.

Awards to Partner Programs are limited to $200,000 total costs for 1 year, including applicable F&A costs, which will be capped at 15%.

Applications proposing allocation of a significant portion of the budget for computing resources are strongly encouraged to consult with PanKbase first.

Project Period: The initial award period is for one year with the possibility of renewal for an additional year contingent upon successful outcome of Year 1 and available funds.

Contact Information

[email protected]"

Source information: https://pankbase.org/funding.html