DISC4 Awards
Supporting Multidisciplinary, Collaborative Research
DISC4 Pre-submission forms will become available on April 17, 2025
Pre-submission forms are due by June 16, 2025, 2 PM (PST)
Discovery Programs at CIRM
The mission of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is to accelerate world class science to deliver transformative regenerative medicine treatments in an equitable manner to a diverse California and world. In support of this mission, CIRM’s governing board approved a structured, data-driven Strategic Allocation Framework (SAF) in 2024 to prioritize resources and maximize the impact of CIRM’s funding.
Designed in response to this framework, CIRM’s new Discovery Programs include complementary funding opportunities that support research at different scales and levels of maturity, emphasizing multidisciplinary innovation, knowledge sharing and leveraging synergies across CIRM-funded programs. These new funding opportunities support comprehensive, discovery research across a diverse range of diseases and bottlenecks to accelerate the development of potential therapeutics and biomarkers in regenerative medicine.
DISC4 Awards: Key Information
DISC4 supports expansive, cross-disciplinary and integrated studies led by collaborative teams applying a range of technologies and approaches to accelerate foundational insights in disease biology. See key program information below:
Expected Outcomes
Funded projects are expected to achieve one or more of the following outcomes:
- Discovering novel mechanistic insights or advance our understanding of human diseases;
- Extending understanding of disease mechanisms to all affected human populations;
- Identification and validation of novel therapeutic strategies, targets, and/or biomarker(s).
Award Amount & Duration
The maximum total funding for a DISC4 Award is $13 million per award. The maximum award duration is four years.
Applicant Teams
Applicant Core Teams must be multi-institutional and include at least five California based investigators: one Principal Investigator (PI, main point of contact with CIRM) and four or more Co-investigators (Co-I).
Preference Topic (2025)
Neurological Diseases (encompassing disorders of the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system)
Proposals with a focus on diseases affecting the brain, spinal cord, or peripheral nervous system, will be prioritized. Pre-submissions that fall outside of these preference areas may still be considered if they represent a unique opportunity to advance the strategic goals of the DISC4 program.
Project Eligibility
To be eligible proposals must fulfill all the following requirements:
- Address a knowledge gap or research bottleneck in the study of human diseases;
- Include studies that employ human stem cells or genetic research as part of the central approach or hypothesis;
- Provide strong justification for any proposed use of non-human models.
Funding Allocation
CIRM anticipates funding six DISC4 awards during fiscal year 2025-2026.
Download the DISC4 Program Announcement (PA) for more details regarding award eligibility, review criteria, and application information.
Important! All prospective DISC4 applicants must first complete a Pre-submission form.
To complete a Pre-submission Form:
Log in with your existing CIRM Username and Password. If you do not have a Username, click on the “New User” link and follow the instructions to Create a CIRM Username and password.
Navigate to “Open Programs”. Click on “Start a Pre-submission Form for prospective DISC4 applicants”.
Click on the appropriate link and follow the posted instructions. Proposal outline templates can be located and submitted under the “Document Uploads” section.
Click on the “Done with Application” button. The “Done with Application” button will be enabled when all the mandatory sections have been completed. Please note that once this has been selected, you will no longer be able to make changes to your application.
Select the tab labeled “Your Applications” and check the table under the section labeled “Your Submitted Applications.” You will see your Pre-submission number and project title listed once the submission process has been completed.
Pre-submission forms for DISC4 will become available on April 17, 2025. All pre-submission forms must be received by June 16, 2025.
DISC4 Application Resources
CIRM will host a live informational webinar and Q&A session on April 28, 2025, at 3 PM (PST).
Webinar video, FAQ documents and other material will be posted here.
DISC4 FAQ
The applicant organization must be a California organization per CIRM’s definition. A “California Organization” is a for-profit or non-profit organization or is a California-domiciled wholly owned subsidiary of a non-California organization (any entity that does not qualify as a California Organization) that meets all of the following criteria:
- Employment and Payroll: Employs at least one W-2 employee; and more than 50% of its W-2 employees, whether part-time or full-time, who are paid in any manner (e.g., wage, salary, commission, equity), must be domiciled full-time in California and be required to file California state income taxes due to their employment with the organization.
- Management of Award Activities: The Principal Investigator (PI) must be physically located in California while overseeing all project activities.
- Intellectual Property Rights: In the case of a California-domiciled wholly owned subsidiary of a non-California organization, the subsidiary must retain exclusive rights to any intellectual property arising out of the CIRM-funded project as well as any pre-existing IP rights held by the parent organization.
To ensure that proposals most well-aligned with the funding area preferences, scope, and objective of the program receive an in-depth scientific review by the Grants Working Group (GWG) panel, CIRM has implemented a Pre-submission process for the DISC4 Awards. The DISC4 Pre-submission must be completed through CIRM’s online grant portal and includes the following sections:
- Online intake section. Information on Core Team members, Project Title/Keywords and eligibility certifications. Brief questionnaire to allow staff to assess alignment with program fit.
- Proposal Outline upload (three-pages). Objectives and aims, research outline, scientific rationale and requested budget. Proposal outline must use provided templates.
Teams will be invited to submit a full application based on Pre-submissions. For more information on the Pre-submissions, download and read through the full program announcement.
The maximum duration of a DISC4 Award is four years, and the award will be capped at $13 million total costs inclusive of direct facilities and indirect costs. Additional funding of up to $1 million ($14 million total) may be requested IF matching funds of equivalent or greater value are provided, please refer to the PA for eligible matching fund contributions.
To be eligible, the proposed project must satisfy the following requirements:
- The proposed project must address knowledge gap(s) or research bottleneck(s) in the study of human diseases
- The proposal must include studies that employ human stem cells or genetic research as part of the central approach or hypothesis
- Strong justification must be provided for any proposed use of non-human models
The Core applicant team must be multi-institutional and include at least five CA-based investigators – one Principal Investigator and at least four Co-investigators. The broader team may include any number of additional Key Personnel – including collaborators, consultants, subcontractors, etc.
All Core Team members (Principal Investigators and designated Co-investigators) must be employed by California-based organizations. In addition, Principal Investigators and Co-Investigators must commit at least 15% (PI) or 10% (Co-I) effort respectively to working on this project and all effort must be expended in California.
The broader team (which includes key personnel) must include at least one data project manager, at least one member with relevant clinical expertise, at least one member with industry/translational experience, and at least one member with relevant computational biology or bioinformatic expertise.
Non-CA-based investigators are not eligible to serve as PI or Co-I on DISC4 awards. However, DISC4 applicants are allowed to budget grant funds to support a non CA-based collaborator through a grant subcontract, provided the out-of-state organization DOES NOT retain the intellectual property or independent publication rights of any intellectual property (e.g., invention, technology, data) arising out of the CIRM-funded project.
In addition, collaborating non-CA investigators and organizations may contribute research activities to the overall project at no cost to the team (in-kind contribution). While non-CA investigators and organizations will not receive CIRM funds in this arrangement, the contributed research may qualify as matching funds, which would allow the applicant team to request additional CIRM funding. Applicants should refer to the section on “Matching funds” in the PA or contact CIRM staff to learn more.
An investigator cannot be listed as a Principal Investigator on more than one application. An investigator may be included in the core team of up to two applications. For instance, a researcher may be listed as a Co-Investigator on two applications OR a Principal Investigator on one application and a Co-Investigator on a second application.
DISC4 awards build on the multi-disciplinary framework piloted through CIRM’s 2024 DISC4 ReMIND-L awards which have a specific focus on neuropsychiatric disorders. The DISC4 program will support a broad set of disease areas while adding new program elements to facilitate readiness for target validation and preclinical translation by the end of the award.
Programmatic questions regarding this award should be emailed to discovery@cirm.ca.gov with the subject line “DISC4”. Specific questions related to budget and Grants Administration policies should be emailed to grantsmanagement@cirm.ca.gov with the subject line “DISC4”.
