Purpose:  The Catalyst Award in Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases (Catalyst-DEMD) is designed to complement NIDDK's traditional, investigator-initiated grant programs by supporting individual scientists who propose pioneering and possibly transforming studies in DEMD topic areas. Applications should be focused on major scientific challenges, and have the potential to produce an unusually high impact on diseases and conditions that are central to the mission of NIDDK's Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases. To be considered responsive to this initiative, the proposed research must reflect new and novel scientific directions that are distinct from concepts and approaches being pursued in the investigator’s research program or elsewhere.