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Director's Messages

An Update on Our Ongoing Efforts To Advance Disease Prevention Research in the Time of COVID-19

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has changed all our lives in so many ways, and it has certainly changed things for the ODP. Like many of you, we have moved to full-time telework as a means of physical distancing to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. It is critically important for all of us to take these kinds of preventive measures, and we all have a role to play in protecting each other’s health. I encourage you to follow the latest public health information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and research updates from the NIH.

While our methods of staying in touch with each other and our colleagues have changed, our work of assessing, facilitating, and disseminating research in disease prevention goes on.

We are proud to be a part of the nation’s premier biomedical research agency and its work to build the evidence needed to respond to this new health challenge. We admire how our colleagues across the NIH are helping to lead the development and validation of new testing technologies, vaccines, and therapeutic candidates for COVID-19.

For our part, ODP Senior Advisor for Disease Prevention Dr. Jacqueline Lloyd and I have been collaborating with other NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICs) to develop plans for several new initiatives for COVID-19 related research. As of writing this message, the ODP has signed on to the following Notices of Special Interest (NOSIs), which are now accepting applications; additional announcements will be forthcoming in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts:

We are so grateful for everyone in the prevention research community who is playing a role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and working to improve public health.

The ODP is also continuing to work to advance prevention research more broadly by:

As we all adjust to new challenges and methods of working, we have compiled some NIH resources that may be helpful:

Finally, I want to thank all of you who responded to our recent request for information on opportunities to better collaborate with our stakeholders. We are carefully reviewing your input, and I look forward to sharing the results and our next steps soon.