Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Program: Data Analysis Center (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA RM 22 010

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The Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Program: Data Analysis Center (DAC) opportunity is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement (UM1; clinical trial not allowed) aimed at creating a centralized analytics and data infrastructure hub for the broader SMaHT Network. The SMaHT Network itself is focused on understanding somatic mosaicism, meaning genomic changes that arise after conception and are present in only a subset of a person's cells. By studying these variants across many human tissues, the program is designed to uncover new biology and explain disease mechanisms that may be driven by tissue-specific or low-frequency somatic genomic variation that standard approaches often miss.

At the center of this funding opportunity is the establishment of a Data Analysis Center that acts as the backbone for how the entire network handles data. A major responsibility is end-to-end data stewardship on behalf of the network, including data ingestion from multiple contributing sites, applying uniform processing pipelines so datasets are comparable, performing standardized annotation so variants and related metadata are described consistently, and ensuring appropriate long-term archiving. In practice, this means the DAC is expected to create and operate scalable, reproducible workflows for processing genomic and related data types, maintain rigorous quality control, and support consistent data models and metadata standards so the network can reliably combine results across tissues, donors, assays, and research groups.

Beyond being a data repository and processing shop, the DAC is also expected to push method development forward. The FOA emphasizes developing new computational methods and bioinformatics tools and then deploying them in a way that researchers can actually use, specifically through an accessible data workbench. This highlights a dual expectation: first, that the DAC will innovate on analytics suited to the challenges of somatic mosaicism (for example, detecting low-allele-fraction variants, distinguishing true mosaic events from sequencing artifacts, and integrating evidence across assays and tissues), and second, that it will operationalize those methods in a user-facing environment so network members and the broader community can analyze SMaHT data without reinventing tooling or infrastructure.

Another core deliverable is a data portal for the network, including the SMaHT Variant Catalog and a variant browser. The intent is to create a public-facing or controlled-access entry point (as appropriate for participant privacy and data use requirements) where users can explore variants, view annotations, and interrogate patterns across tissues and contexts. A variant catalog and browser implies structured, queryable access to curated somatic variants along with supporting evidence, tissue provenance, relevant quality metrics, and functional annotations, enabling discovery and hypothesis generation. This portal function is not just about hosting files; it is about building an organized, searchable knowledge resource that turns raw multi-site sequencing outputs into something interpretable and reusable.

The DAC is also charged with harmonizing SMaHT resources with related programs, reflecting NIH's expectation that SMaHT will not exist in isolation. Harmonization typically involves aligning data standards, ontologies, metadata fields, pipelines, and access mechanisms with other large-scale genomics and biomedical data ecosystems so results are comparable and interoperable. This could include coordinating identifiers and controlled vocabularies for tissues, phenotypes, assays, and variant representations, and ensuring that data and tools can integrate with or be cross-referenced against external resources and community standards. The goal is to maximize downstream impact and reduce fragmentation across federal research investments.

From an administrative and eligibility standpoint, this opportunity is listed as discretionary funding under a cooperative agreement mechanism, meaning NIH anticipates substantial programmatic involvement compared with a standard grant. The activity category is health, with CFDA number 93.310. Eligible applicants span a wide range of U.S.-based organizations, including state, county, and local governments; public and private institutions of higher education; independent school districts; special district governments; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)); for-profit entities other than small businesses; and small businesses. The FOA explicitly calls out additional eligible applicant types such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions, as well as faith-based or community-based organizations and certain regional organizations, reflecting an inclusive stance on institutional participation within the U.S. context.

Restrictions on foreign involvement are clear and strict. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components as defined by NIH policy are not allowed. In other words, the work supported under this FOA is expected to be carried out without foreign organizational components, reinforcing that the funded DAC must be fully U.S.-based in its applicant organization and its supported operational structure.

Key identifying details in the source listing include the funding opportunity number RFA-RM-22-010, the agency being NIH, and an original closing date of 2022-07-08. The award ceiling and expected number of awards are not specified in the provided summary, but the scope described is large and infrastructure-heavy, consistent with a network-level UM1 center award rather than a small research project grant. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as funding a national-scale data and analytics hub whose job is to make SMaHT data usable, trustworthy, interoperable, and broadly impactful through standardized processing, advanced analytics, a robust portal and variant catalog, and active coordination with related biomedical data efforts.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Somatic Mosaicism across Human Tissues (SMaHT) Program: Data Analysis Center (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.310.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-02-23.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-07-08. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

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