NIH DP2 Grants — NIH Director's New Innovator Award

Recent DP2 awards from NIH RePORTER

Examples of funded DP2 projects across the last two fiscal years. The matching-award count comes from the full result set; funding totals, averages, rankings, and examples use the first 500 records returned by NIH RePORTER. Figures reflect a snapshot last refreshed on September 5, 2026.

Example DP2 projects from the sample

• Reconstructing the Maternal-Fetal Interface: A Placenta–Brain Axis on a Chip Platform to Transform Models of Prenatal Neurotoxicity

  1DP2ES039816-01
  Melissa Campbell · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO, CA · $760,000 · awarded Aug 26, 2026 · NIH

  Project Summary: Environmental exposures during pregnancy including pesticides, air pollutants, and common medications are among the most potent yet least understood drivers of adverse neurodevelopment. Epidemiological studies consistently link such exposures to disorders such as autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia, but the mechanistic pathways connecting…

• Mapping Molecular Exposomics: From Blood Biomarkers to Tissue Architecture

  1DP2ES039817-01
  Peng Gao · HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, MA · $722,000 · awarded Aug 26, 2026 · NIH

  Project Summary Environmental factors contribute to 70-90% of chronic disease burden, yet we lack fundamental tools to comprehensively track how chemicals move from blood to tissues and alter cellular function. Current environmental health approaches capture less than 10% of human chemical exposures, examine tissues as homogeneous units rather than complex…

• Deciphering long-term virus evolution through the reconstruction of past viral genomes

  5DP2AI177896-04
  Daniel Blanco-Melo · FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER CENTER, WA · $509,299 · awarded Aug 20, 2026 · NIH

  Project Summary Viruses have imposed a significant global burden of morbidity and mortality for millennia and continue to pose major threats to public health in the United States. Just in the last century, highly pathogenic RNA viruses such as influenza A, HIV and SARS-CoV-2 resulted in devastating pandemics that directly impacted millions of individuals…

• Mechanisms of Persistence Predisposition Across Salmonella Serovars

  1DP2AI200919-01
  Alexandra Grote · NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, IL · $480,000 · awarded Aug 13, 2026 · NIH

  PROJECT SUMMARY Salmonella enterica remains a major public health burden, causing 1.35 million infections and over 26,000 hospitalizations annually in the United States. Beyond acute illness, non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) can establish persistent infections that evade host immunity and antibiotic therapy, fueling ongoing transmission and antimicrobial…

• Uncovering the Functional Role of the Skin Mycobiome in Atopic Dermatitis

  1DP2AI200973-01
  Caitlin Kowalski · DARTMOUTH-HITCHCOCK CLINIC, NH · $443,825 · awarded Aug 12, 2026 · NIH

  ABSTRACT Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common chronic inflammatory skin disease, affecting over 16 million adults in the United States. It manifests as intensely itchy, painful, dry skin that is highly disruptive to daily life and increases risk for secondary infection. Despite the availability of new therapies, AD onset, severity, and response to…

• Real-time predictive modeling for public health departments to control infectious diseases

  5DP2AI170485-05
  Nathan Lo · STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CA · $463,200 · awarded Aug 12, 2026 · NIH

  PROJECT SUMMARY Public health departments increasingly use predictive modeling to guide decisions and resource allocation for the control of infectious diseases in the United States, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. These novel predictive models offer promise to better identify high-risk populations to precisely deploy interventions such as…

• Defining the impact of the gut microbiome in Cystic Fibrosis patients in the development of colorectal cancer

  1DP2AI201001-01
  ALLISON WEIS · UTAH STATE HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEM--UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, UT · $461,871 · awarded Aug 12, 2026 · NIH

  Cystic Fibrosis (CF) affects over 40,000 people in the United States (US) with multiorgan disease including the lungs and GI tract. Despite modulator drugs that dramatically improve the lifespan for CF patients, recent findings show that adults living with CF now face a 5–10× higher risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC). Globally, CRC afflicts 1.9…

• Defining the immune-stem cell programs that drive multi-tissue regeneration in mammals

  1DP2AI201002-01
  Kailin Mesa · PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, NJ · $492,000 · awarded Aug 11, 2026 · NIH

  Project Summary Tissue regeneration represents a frontier in immunology: how immune cells coordinate the rebuilding of complex tissues after injury. While lower vertebrates regenerate entire appendages, mammals heal through inflammatory scarring, a process orchestrated by immune programs that remain poorly defined. This proposal aims to uncover how immune…

• Essential Functions of Alveolar Epithelial Cells in Tuberculosis Pathogenesis

  1DP2AI200598-01
  Sadiya Parveen-Nesson · LOUISIANA STATE UNIV HSC SHREVEPORT, LA · $442,500 · awarded Aug 11, 2026 · NIH

  Abstract : Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is a chronic bacterial infection. It remains a significant global health burden1, killing more than a million individuals annually. In 2025, there was a 15% rise in TB cases in the USA, with a major outbreak in Kansas and active TB cases in Maine. The current TB treatment options are…

• Glycocalyx Remodeling as a Molecular Switch for Viral Entry

  1DP2AI200969-01
  Carolyn Shurer · UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE, TN · $429,586 · awarded Aug 11, 2026 · NIH

  PROJECT SUMMARY Influenza A viruses (IAV) remain a persistent pandemic threat, underscoring the need for novel antiviral strategies. The polarized, mucin-rich epithelial glycocalyx serves as the first barrier to IAV infection by providing both decoy receptors and a steric barrier to IAV binding. Conflicting reports that mucins both inhibit and enhance IAV…

• Tumor suppressor vulnerability conferred by aneuploid loss of haploinsufficient metallothionein genes

  3DP2CA280626-02S1
  Joe Delaney · MEDICAL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA, SC · $9,890 · awarded Aug 7, 2026 · NIH

  Abstract Cancer will rarely be cured through pharmacologic targeting of single genes. Tumors evolve in response to selection pressure. Precision oncology often targets a single gene product, and that gene simply becomes mutated once the drug is administered. Although individual genes may mutate, tumor biology is nonetheless constrained to dysregulating…

• Deciphering the immunogenicity of cell death using systematic genetic tools

  5DP2AI184830-03
  Roarke Kamber · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, CA · $467,405 · awarded Aug 7, 2026 · NIH

  Project Summary Professional phagocytes, including macrophages and dendritic cells, engulf approximately 200 billion dead cells per day in humans. The vast majority of dead cells are consumed “silently,” in that the phagocyte does not trigger an adaptive immune response targeting the material in the engulfed cell, thereby maintaining tolerance of self.…

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Searchers often land on DP2 while deciding between adjacent NIH activity codes. Compare scope, NIH staff involvement, budget scale, and applicant stage before choosing a funding opportunity.