Computational Health

UC Noyce Initiative 
2025 Computational Health
Decoding Disease: Computational Discovery Across Scales
Call for Applications 
 

Important Dates:

Overview:

The UC Noyce Initiative, a partnership among five University of California campuses—Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara—honors the legacy of Robert N. Noyce and Ann S. Bowers by catalyzing high-impact research in digital technology and innovation. Given that diseases do not exist on a single scale, to make real progress in preventing and treating complex diseases, we need science that integrates data across levels; from the molecular to the systemic, from the individual to the population. To address this need, the UC Noyce Initiative will invest in collaborative, computationally driven research to decode disease across scales to support multi-scale integration and system-level discovery. 

Multi-scale integration refers to the use of data, models, and methods that bridge:

  • Genomic ↔ Transcriptomic ↔ Proteomic layers
  • Single-cell ↔ Tissue-level ↔ Organism-wide observations
  • Biological ↔ Behavioral ↔ Environmental influences
  • Mechanistic data ↔ Clinical phenotypes ↔ Real-world outcomes

 

Research based on existing data sets is highly encouraged.  UC Noyce Initiative is particularly interested in computational methods — AI, machine learning, dynamic modeling, systems biology — that can synthesize across these layers to generate novel hypotheses, test mechanisms, generate novel hypotheses, simulate disease processes, and enable precision medicine. Applicants should consider generalizability, such as innovations, models, and data platforms that will benefit labs, diseases, discovery, and clinical efforts across the world. Projects should focus on infrastructure and activities that unite the analytical, biological, and clinical expertise across the UC Noyce Initiative partner campuses. 

In 2025, the UC Noyce Initiative will support research efforts that tackle one or more of the following grand challenges in computational health to produce new insights, data sources, shareable tools, and scientific infrastructure that enable breakthroughs across the life sciences.  By linking molecular, cellular, physiological, and population-level data to drive meaningful scientific breakthroughs, awarded projects will unravel complexity in high-burden diseases, reveal new therapeutic mechanisms and preventive approaches, or generate tools and models that accelerate broader research. 

Challenge 1: Disease Mechanism Modeling Across Scales

Disease pathophysiology manifests across multiple biological levels (e.g. from genes to tissues).  Therefore, new in silico or hybrid modeling approaches are desired to address systems-level conditions, for example neurodegeneration, inflammation, or tumor microenvironment and others. Additionally, the unification of multiple data sources via multi-modal modeling is desired, including -omics, imaging, clinical, and population data.

Challenge 2: Discovery in High-Burden, Data-Rich Diseases

Contemporary research has generated vast amounts of data across multiple fields that require synthesis to form new lines of inquiry into causes of disease.  Some examples include, but are not limited to:

  • Cancer: Linking endotypes to transcriptomics/proteomics and treatment response
  • Brain health: Modeling protein folding, neural circuit breakdown, and at-home measurements of nervous system function (e.g., in Alzheimer’s & other dementias)
  • Diabetes & metabolic disease: Integrating metabolic, genomic, and lifestyle data for subtype discovery and response to standard of care or novel treatment paradigms
  • Autoimmune/inflammatory diseases: Connecting immune cell states to flare triggers, organ-level pathology, and clinical phenotypes 

Challenge 3: Enabling New Therapeutic Targets for Biomarkers

Biomarker research offers a promising means of developing precision medicine strategies informed by the individual patient.  Challenges within this approach include but are not limited to: the computational identification of cross-scale theranostic biomarker profiles, as well as the development of methods to stratify patients based on the integration of biological profiles and health and clinical data.

Challenge 4: Scalable Computational Infrastructure for Integration

Increases in computational research activity will require dedicated investments into infrastructure to drive progress and future-proof systems.  Considerations for this challenge include:

  • Shared software pipelines, toolkits, or Application Program Interfaces (APIs) for cross-scale data integration and interoperability
  • New computational and statistical methods to speed and strengthen understanding and causal relationships across scale
  • Visualization tools for dynamic, multi-scale in silico system simulation at any scale (e.g., molecule, cell, organ, individual, community)

Award Details

The UC Noyce Initiative anticipates awarding up to four multi-campus partnership awards. Partnerships must focus on addressing one of the challenges outlined above and include at least three Initiative campuses. Partnerships can request up to $600,000 over the one-year award duration. The total amount of funding available for this RFP is up to $2,000,000.

Award Type

Multi-campus partnerships

Budget Maximum

Up to $400,000 for three campuses.

$600,000 for four or five campuses.

Award Duration

One year

Partnership Requirements

Inclusion of at least three initiative campuses

Eligibility

  1. Principal Investigator (PI) status at one of the Initiative campuses.
  2. A researcher may only serve as PI on one application but may be listed as a collaborator in more than one proposal.
  3. Current and previous UC Noyce Initiative award recipients are eligible to apply. 

How to submit your application

Proposals must be submitted online at: https://ucdavis.infoready4.com/ on the UC Davis Administered Programs InfoReady Review page by the listed deadlines. 

Apply Now

 

Be sure to include the following information:

  1. Proposal Title: Please insert the title of your proposal
  2. Have you received funding from the UC Noyce Initiative: (Yes/No).  Please note this will be used for Initiative tracking purposes only.
  3. PI Names and Campuses: Please enter the names and campus affiliations for all PIs on the application 

As well as:

Challenge Area: 

  • Disease Mechanism Modeling Across Scales
  • Discovery in High-Burden, Data-Rich Diseases
  • Enabling New Therapeutic Targets for Biomarkers
  • Scalable Computational Infrastructure for Integration

Abstract:  

Please outline why the research is needed/important and the potential broader impact it would have on society; an overview of the scientific methods to be used; and a statement about the promise of the proposed project to later leverage additional funding sources from federal or industry sources. (500 word max)

Impact Statement:  

Explain how the proposed research may have a broader impact on your field, technology, and society. (200 words max)

Research Narrative: 

The research narrative should include the following information (Five pages max) :

  • Background/Rationale
  • Research methodology and specific aims
  • Innovation: Highlight the innovation involved in the approach, technology, solution etc.
  • Impact: Explain the potential impacts of this research on your field and society and, if applicable, the translational potential of the proposed research.
  • Collaboration: Explain how the proposed collaboration will advance your research and impact. Comment on how the collaboration will work across the campus partners.
  • Please ensure that the research narrative is no longer than five pages not including references using no smaller than 11-pt font and 1-inch margins. 

Budget and Budget Justification: 

Please complete the provided budget template (see InfoReady competition page) to outline how the requested funding will be utilized, as well as a 1-page budget justification briefly explaining the proposed costs in each category.  Awards may be used to cover relevant research expenses, including salary support, graduate student/postdoctoral research support, supplies and materials, computing expenses, equipment, publication expenses, and travel costs.  Indirect costs should not be included.

CVs: 

Please provide a CV (five page maximum) for each PI and co-investigators participating in the project.  We also welcome NIH or NSF biosketch formats.  Be sure to call out any special qualifications that uniquely qualify you for this project.

Review Criteria 

Applications will undergo peer review by faculty in relevant fields from Initiative campuses. The peer reviewers will assess applications on the following review criteria, which applicants are encouraged to consider when developing their proposals.   

The outcome from the review committee will be provided to the UC Noyce Initiative leadership who will finalize the award decisions. 

  • Scientific Merit (50% scoring weight)
    Are the proposed approaches and methodologies clearly outlined, scientifically rigorous, and appropriate for the proposed research?  Is the problem being addressed important and timely?  Is the proposed approach innovative?  Are appropriate data protection/management systems in place?  If the research involves human subjects, are necessary protections outlined and appropriate?   
     
  • Impact (25% scoring weight) 
    How impactful would the proposed research be in advancing knowledge, methodologies and/or technology in the indicated thematic area?  What is the translational potential of the proposed research?  What is the impact on society?  How likely is the proposed research to impact follow-on funding?  Are there any transparency, accountability or ethical concerns that may arise from the research?  How will your team address these concerns?
     
  • Strength of the Collaboration (15% scoring weight)
    Does the collaboration across partner campuses strengthen the proposed research?  Is the partnership complementary and/or synergistic?  Does the proposal outline a meaningful engagement plan across the participating campus partners? 
     
  • Expertise and Capacity (10% scoring weight)
    Do the PIs have the experience and expertise to conduct the proposed research? Does the application include collaborators with complementary expertise and the appropriate levels of support to complete the proposed research?  Does the proposal outline that the collaboration has the needed equipment, space, or mechanisms in place to successfully achieve the stated goals? Is the requested budget and justification reasonable and appropriate for the successful completion of the research? 

Annual reporting and symposium 

All award recipients will provide an annual progress report.  Awardees will also be invited and encouraged to participate in the annual UC Noyce Initiative Symposium.

Apply Now

Contact information

For questions about eligibility and application process, contact the UC Noyce Initiative liaison within your campus' Office of Research:

Should you have any questions about the application process, please contact ucnoyce-rfps@ucdavis.edu.

Tags

Computational Health