Applications Invited for Mental Health Award: Advancing target validation for novel mental health drug discovery

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About the Organization

Wellcome is a global charitable foundation established in 1936. Through our work we support science to solve the urgent health issues facing everyone. We fund curiosity-driven research, and we’re taking on three of the biggest health challenges facing humanity – climate change, infectious disease and mental health.

With a £37.6 billion investment portfolio, we give researchers the time and resources they need to make breakthroughs. We also work with policy makers, run advocacy campaigns, and form partnerships with other organisations to ensure everyone, everywhere benefits from advances in health science.

About the Grant

This call will provide funding for validation activities for novel targets with a clear therapeutic concept and strong biological rationale related to early intervention in anxiety, depression and/or psychosis. Funded proposals will generate data supporting the target’s therapeutic potential in the development of new and improved pharmacological treatments.

This call has been designed in collaboration with the Psychiatry Consortium to help enable early and robust target validation research.

This call aims to support research activities to validate novel targets that have a clear therapeutic concept, a strong biological rationale and relevance to early intervention in anxiety, depression and/or psychosis. Successful projects will generate data demonstrating that modulation of the target has potential to lead to a clinical benefit, including toxicity considerations, and will develop the potential for a drug discovery campaign. Early elimination of non-viable targets is also important to better inform future research hypotheses and experimental designs.

We define a 'target' as a biochemical entity in the body that a drug can bind to, including but not limited to:

• receptors
• proteins
• enzymes
• biomolecules (for example, DNA, RNA, peptides)
• gut microbiome

Target validation activities must demonstrate that a target is directly involved in a pathophysiological process that leads to the emergence of symptoms and that the modulation of the target can produce a change in the biological pathway and possible clinical efficacy.

This funding call is focused on proposals that target anxiety, depression and psychosis or associated symptoms. This includes:

• all types of anxiety and depressive disorders (including obsessive-compulsive disorder, postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder)
• all forms of psychotic disorders (including schizophrenia, postpartum psychosis and bipolar disorder)

While we do not specify any particular diagnostic or classification system, we expect applicants to use a framework and measurement approach that fits their research aim and to provide a clear rationale for doing so.

What your proposal must include:

• Novelty: A clear explanation as to the target’s novelty with supporting evidence.
• Rationale and evidence: A clear rationale supporting the target including the therapeutic concept (for example, detailing the mechanism of how target modulation would lead to clinical efficacy). The applicant should consider the latest converging lines of evidence and the latest relevant knowledge on the target.
• Patient impact: A clear description of the potential patient population with appropriate justifications as to why the symptom(s) are a priority focus for people with lived experience. There must also be a description of how the proposal has the potential to create a step-change in early intervention.
• Proposal plan: A feasible plan to generate a robust validation data package supporting the target’s therapeutic potential.
• Expertise and skills: Clear evidence to show that the team and any consultants is comprised of necessary expertise. The team must include at least one person with knowledge relating to the biological mechanisms of the relevant mental health condition(s). Proposals should clearly describe and justify the role of each team member and any consultants. 

Relevant research activities include, but are not limited to, the use of:

• in-vitro models/assays including cells, iPSCs and organoids
• in-vivo mechanistic animal models/studies including knockouts
• in-silico target modelling and structural biology
• ex-vivo animal models, such as animal brain culture slices
• computational neuroscience, including neural circuit and network analysis
• electrophysiology
• imaging
• bio- and chemo- informatics and structural biology
• genomics, including CRISPR technology
• proteomics and transcriptomics including mRNA interference, if focused on validating a specific target
• optogenetics and chemogenetics
• in-vivo human studies if focused on novel target validation
• development and/or use of molecular tools for the purposes of target validation
• drug repurposing with a novel target and a focus on target validation

Eligibility

You can apply to this call if you are a team of researchers:

• from disciplines relevant to drug discovery and mental health science, including but not limited to genomics, neuroscience, computational psychiatry, molecular biology in psychiatry, medicinal chemistry, neuropharmacology, in-vitro/vivo/silico pharmacology and drug discovery
• from an eligible organisation
• based anywhere in the world (apart from mainland China)

We encourage applications from teams that:

• are diverse and interdisciplinary, within one or across multiple institutions and with collaborations covering multiple areas of expertise
• include researchers at any stage of their career

The administering organisation is where the lead applicant is based. It is responsible for submitting your final application to Wellcome and managing the finances of the grant if it is awarded.

The administering organisation can be based anywhere in the world apart from mainland China. It must be able to sign up to Wellcome’s grant conditions.

Your organisation can be a:

• higher education institution
• research institute
• non-academic healthcare organisation
• not-for-profit or non-governmental research organisation

Commercial organisations are not eligible to apply as administering organisations or coapplicants for this call. However, commercial organisations can be added as consultants (service providers) or collaborators.

How to Apply

Preliminary application deadline: 15 April 2025.

Apply for this funding call on the Wellcome Funding Platform.

For more information please check the Link

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Tags Healthcare and Healthtech Research Others