The purpose of this Notice is to inform potential applicants to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) about a special interest in supporting basic research on the application of chemoproteomic approaches for the discovery of targets and for development of drugs to treat addiction and substance use disorders.
Chemoproteomics combines diverse approaches in synthetic chemistry, cell biology and mass spectrometry to covalently modify, identify, and characterize protein targets of interest for drug discovery. Chemical proteomic platforms such as the activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) have proven effective for identifying drug targets in various biological settings. Use of reactivity-based chemical probes and advanced quantitative mass spectrometry-based proteomic techniques have enabled identification of hotspots for ligand binding on proteins including those that are generally considered undruggable. Chemoproteomic methods also enable identification of allosteric binding sites that could be targeted with small molecules to modulate the function of the target proteins. These chemoproteomic approaches, together with emerging technologies such as targeted protein degradation, covalent fragment-based ligand discovery, and biorthogonal chemistry, are transforming the landscape of drug discovery. Development of novel chemoproteomic methods and their application, therefore, holds considerable potential for identifying and illuminating targets of relevance to substance use and for providing leads for the development of drugs for treating substance use disorders.
The goal of this announcement is to encourage preclinical research aimed at developing and applying chemoproteomic approaches to identify targets of relevance to substance use disorders and to develop novel pharmacological tools, methods, and therapeutic interventions for the treatment of substance use disorders and addiction.
This notice applies to due dates on or after February 5, 2023 and subsequent receipt dates through January 8, 2026.
NOT-DA-24-005