Alzheimer’s Research Program Transforming Diagnosis Award (FY26)
The Defense Health Agency’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs has opened the FY26 Alzheimer’s Research Program Transforming Diagnosis Award. The mechanism supports non-incremental, solutions-oriented research that reduces or overcomes important barriers to obtaining a diagnosis, meaningful disease monitoring and accurate prognosis in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Roughly $3.2 million is available to fund approximately two awards in this round.
Barriers in scope are deliberately broad: technologies, cost, patient access to diagnosis or prognosis technology, diagnosis management, applicability, clinical implementation, the relationship between diagnostics and clinical outcome measures, biomarker validation, and lack of longitudinal data to inform prediction or prognosis. Studies addressing health disparities in AD/ADRD are encouraged. Applications that fail to clearly show how the work addresses or overcomes current diagnostic or prognostic challenges will not meet the intent of the call.
Several boundaries shape what fits. Preliminary data are required. Clinical research is allowed, but clinical trials and animal research are prohibited. Biomarker validation work is supported, including efforts to widen inclusivity and applicability, but projects whose primary goal is basic biomarker discovery are out of scope. Community collaboration is required for any research prospectively enrolling human subjects, defined as shared ownership of the project between scientific investigators and community members rather than a consultation step. The programme encourages use of existing cohorts and datasets, including cohorts of people aged 65 and under.
Funding and duration
Single PI applications are capped at $1.5 million total costs across the project. The Career Initiation or Transition Partnership Option allows two PIs to apply jointly under a combined $1.7 million cap, with separate awards made to each organisation. The maximum period of performance is four years. Indirect costs follow each organisation’s negotiated rate. Clinical trial costs and animal costs are not allowable.
Eligibility
Applicants must hold an independent investigator position at an eligible extramural or intramural Department of War organisation, domestic or foreign, for-profit or nonprofit. Postdoctoral and clinical fellows do not qualify. Under the CIT Partnership Option, at least one investigator must meet Career Initiation criteria (three to seven years post-terminal degree, in a first independent role with limited support or publications) or Career Transition criteria (any career stage, but new to military health, TBI or AD/ADRD work). No investigator may be named on more than four TrDA applications.
Key dates
- Pre-application due: 22 June 2026, 5pm ET
- Invitations to submit full application: 10 August 2026
- Full application due: 24 September 2026, 11:59pm ET
- Peer review: December 2026
- Programmatic review: February 2027
Pre-applications go through eBRAP. Full applications go through Grants.gov for extramural organisations or eBRAP for intramural DOW organisations. SAM.gov, eBRAP and Grants.gov registrations all need to be active before submission. The full program announcement (HT942526AZRPTrDA) and General Application Instructions are on the CDMRP website and should be read together.
Visit funding web page
(https://cdmrp.health.mil/funding/azrp)
