An official website of the United States governmentNCCIH’s Research Centers Program
NCCIH supports research centers to conduct multidisciplinary research not readily supported through other funding mechanisms.
NCCIH Centers Summaries
Centers of Excellence for Research on Complementary and Integrative Health
The purpose of NCCIH’s Centers of Excellence for Research on Complementary and Integrative Health (CERCIH) program is to support synergistic, multidisciplinary, multi-project research programs that have strong potential to significantly advance the mission of NCCIH and address areas of high research priority, as described in its current strategic plan. Basic, mechanistic, and translational approaches are appropriate for the CERCIH, but should not propose clinical trials of efficacy/effectiveness. Studies proposing to use human participants are allowed, and indeed for some complementary health interventions, using human participants may be the only current way to conduct mechanistic studies. This program is continuously active, so researchers may apply anytime. However, applicants must first obtain permission from NCCIH before submitting a P01 application. Please view the policy for P01 investigator-initiated applications.
See this funding announcement.
Centers for Advancing Research on Botanicals and Other Natural Products (CARBON) Program
Funding for the CARBON Program Centers are renewed on a 5-year cycle.
View the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Botanical Research Expert Panel Meeting (July 14, 2022) [261 KB PDF]
Botanical Dietary Supplement Research Centers (BDSRC)
These centers use cutting-edge techniques to conduct research on botanicals in dietary supplements. The long-term goal is to support development of preclinical data needed in preparation for definitive clinical trials on botanical products. The centers focus on botanicals traditionally used for health maintenance and those that have shown promise for improving resilience. View the most recent RFA for these Centers.
Natural Products Technology, Methodology and Productivity Optimization Centers (NP-TEMPO)
The goal of this initiative is to strengthen technologies for natural products research. The NP-TEMPO is expected to overcome existing research limitations by developing and/or adapting cutting edge, innovative approaches and technologies that will have significant impact on the chemical and biological annotation of natural products. Furthermore, this Center serves a leadership role by coordinating scientific discourse and disseminating methodology and best practices to the natural product research community. The NP-TEMPO centers collaborate directly with other grantees through Technology Demonstration Projects. View the most recent RFA for these Centers.
Center of Excellence for Natural Product Drug Interaction Research
The ultimate goals of this program are to 1) clearly establish the clinical relevance of pharmacokinetic interactions from a select number of natural products, and 2) provide guidance and leadership to the broader research community on how best to research metabolism mediated drug interactions involving complex natural products.
The Center will 1) identify, prioritize, source and characterize three to five natural products with potential to exhibit clinically significant interactions with commonly used medications; 2) perform all necessary preclinical work to characterize the interaction potential of the natural products including identifying the key mediators of any pharmacokinetic interaction as well as the mechanism(s) and magnitude of that interaction; 3) if warranted based on preclinical work, conduct rigorously designed clinical studies of these natural products to provide definitive data regarding the magnitude of any interaction in humans; 4) develop and maintain a repository for the data and methodology resources generated by this project as well as data generated by other researchers (especially the R21 grants funded through the companion RFA AT-20-001) regarding pharmacokinetic interactions involving natural products; and 5) provide ongoing guidance and leadership to the relevant research communities regarding how best to conduct research on pharmacokinetic natural product drug interactions; thereby facilitating better design of future research and ultimately better decisions regarding the concomitant use of medications and natural products. Funding is renewed on a 5-year cycle. View the most recent RFA for these Centers.
A current list of funded centers can be found on NIH RePORTER, an electronic tool that allows users to search a repository of NIH-funded research projects and access publications and patents resulting from NIH funding. The RePORT (Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools) website provides access to a variety of reporting tools, reports, data, and analyses of NIH research activities.
View NCCIH-funded Centers.
Scientific Contact
For more information, contact Craig Hopp, Ph.D.