CFF Path to a Cure (PTAC) Research Grants

CFF PTAC Research Grant

Backs research teams and institutions for CFF PTAC Research Grant in biotechnology, synthetic biology, and medical technology.

The CFF PTAC Research Grant fall 2026 cycle is the second annual opportunity for investigators working on genetic therapies for cystic fibrosis to apply for support under the Foundation's $500 million Path to a Cure initiative. The award provides up to $150,000 per year in direct costs plus 12% indirect costs for up to two years, competitively renewable. The fall deadline is expected in December 2026; exact dates are posted on awards.cff.org when the RFA opens. Applications must be submitted online by 5 p.m. ET on the stated deadline.

PTAC Research Grants are exclusively for proposals addressing CFTR function in patients whose mutations — premature stop codons, splice variants, insertions, or deletions — are not corrected by currently approved small-molecule modulators. The seven CFF-published PTAC focus areas cover airway cell characterization, gene insertion and hotspot repair technologies, safe harbor site evaluation, cell-specific nucleic acid delivery to lungs and extrapulmonary organs, chemistries for large gene editing payload delivery, immune and inflammatory response assessment, and in vitro pre-clinical assay development for CFTR restoration. Proposals that primarily involve modulator optimization or repurposing should be submitted to the standard Research Grant program instead.

Eligible applicants are independent investigators at U.S. academic or research institutions. Industry applicants are not eligible for academic PTAC grants and should approach CFF Mission Ventures. Each institution may submit only one PTAC Research Grant application per cycle. The Policies and Guidelines PDF at cff.org/media/11066/download contains binding page limits, format requirements, and the scoring rubric. Review is conducted by the PTAC Committee in a peer-review process modeled on NIH standards; notification timelines are typically four to eight months from submission. The PTAC Collaborative Research Grant, with awards up to $1 million per year for three years, is available for multi-investigator proposals targeting the same focus areas at greater scale.