Challenges Program | NIDA

Current Challenges

What is a Challenge/Prize?

• Challenges are an appeal to a diverse array of potential ‘solvers’ to provide a solution for a particular goal.
• Typically, Challenges are ‘crowdsourced’ to a large group of people, commonly via the internet, to obtain a needed service, idea, concept, product, etc. from sources non-traditional sources.
• Prizes – monetary and/or non-monetary – often accompany challenges.
• Challenges/prizes are an alternative funding mechanism to contracts or grants.
• Challenges are specific, detailed, and actionable. They need to be formulated, posted to a wide-audience, tracked, judged and awarded.

Past Challenges

“Barriers and Solutions to Building Community Partnerships in Deploying Remote Assessments” Challenge

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is announcing the “Barriers and Solutions to Building Community Partnership in Deploying Remote Assessments” Challenge. The Challenge goal is to inspire the creation of actionable steps for creating and sustaining bidirectional researcher-community partnerships that will reduce barriers and mistrust between academic, clinical, and research-conducting institutions and communities to increase recruitment and retention of participants in remote, including virtual, clinical research studies. NIDA expects that the contest will allow participants to identify areas of opportunity to build community trust and empower community voices, address systemic and personal factors that discourage adoption of remote research platforms, and develop remote platforms that are ethical, safe, and meaningful to communities. NIDA seeks broad input from individuals and groups both within and outside the addiction science field, with the hope and expectation that successful examples of strong researcher-community partnerships will provide the NIDA research community with insights and tools to strengthen its use of remote assessments and serve its mission to advance science on drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health.

“Remote Assessments of Substance Use Disorder (SUD)-Relevant Measurements” Challenge

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is announcing the “Remote Assessments of Substance Use Disorder (SUD)-Relevant Measurements” Challenge. The goal of the Challenge is to identify and highlight the current best practices and state-of-the-art approaches to collect remotely assessed measurements of SUD-relevant cognitive, behavioral, physiologic, and environmental information, and compare these to measurements collected in controlled experimental settings (e.g., laboratory or clinical settings). Examples of relevant measurements include physiologic and biological measures, cognitive task performance, behavioral and social measures, and environmental characterizations. Further, remote assessment approaches should demonstrate the ability to lower the burdens of participation for research participants, particularly disproportionality affected groups and/or under-resourced communities. NIDA expects that the Challenge will inspire adoption of best practices in remote assessment of SUD-relevant measurements by the wider research community. To accomplish these goals, this Challenge will provide both monetary support and exposure to current best practices and methodologies. NIDA will also convene a meeting to highlight the winning submission(s) to foster a community of current and future remote assessment practitioners.

“Drug Repurposing and Repositioning Insights for Treating SUDs” Challenge

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) announced the “Drug Repurposing and Repositioning Insights for Treating SUDs” Challenge in November of 2024. The judging of submissions is now complete. NIDA thanks all solvers for their drug repurposing and repositioning ideas and is delighted to share the results of the Challenge.

NIDA is announcing four winners of $10,000 prizes each for their submissions to the “Drug Repurposing and Repositioning Insights for Treating SUDs” Challenge:

Charles Chavkin of Jaywing Therapeutics
Title: Repurposing Nalfurafine as a KOR-inactivating Medication for the Treatment of Dynorphin-induced Dysphoria During Opioid Abstinence to Reduce Relapse Risk

Davin Rautiola of Single Dose Therapeutics
Title: Repurposing SD-A001 for use in the Treatment of Amphetamine-Type Stimulant Use Disorder

Kristy Carpenter of Stanford University
Title: Repurposing Telmisartan for Opioid Use Disorder

Mark Bicket and Patrick Lester of the University of Michigan
Title: Repositioning Atipamezole to Save Lives as an Antidote to Xylazine Overdose

NIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and applauds their efforts to repurpose or reposition existing drugs to treat substance use disorders.

If you have questions about this challenge, contact the NIDA Challenge team at NIDAChallenge@nih.gov.

Past Years: “$100,000 Start an SUD Startup” Challenge

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) announced the 2024 “$100,000 Start an SUD Startup” Challenge in July of 2024, and now that the submissions have gone through the judging process, NIDA is delighted to share the results of the Challenge. The following teams have been selected by the NIDA judges to receive the Stage 1 prize of personalized entrepreneurial mentoring for each team. Winner notification letters with instructions will be sent to the email addresses of the Team Leader.

2024 

Congratulations to all Winners!

Submission #6030 
Team Members: Jim O’Neill, Vannak Chhay, and Alex Paar
Proposal Title: Recovery Jobs Platform; addressing social determinants of health (SDOHs) through employment support innovation

Submission #6032 
Team Members: Mikael Rubin, Santiago Papini, and Rushi Rawal
Proposal Title: ElevateAR: Augmented Reality to Enhance Remote SUD Treatment

Submission #6033 
Team Members: Jessica Northcott-Brillatti, Whitney Menarcheck,and Annette Mich,
Proposal Title: SUDCx: The Hub for SUD Innovation and Networking

Submission #6039
Team Members: Zach Dyce, Layla Aboukhater, and Neil Ok
Proposal Title: Thrive Well: Patient Engagement and Case Management for Community Health Organizations

Submission #6042
Team Members: Pavana Rotti, Zia Barnard, and Stephan Lindenthal
Proposal Title: Nervoid: Novel therapies for opioid overdose

Submission #6045
Team Members: Nicholas Kovalsky, Eshan Dosani, Bijan Toulabi, Thomas Blalock, Michaela Kovalsky, and Daedalus Fitzgerald
Proposal Title: CareTailor - A Machine Learning Innovation for Substance Use Disorder Treatment

Submission #6046
Team Members: Jae Sevelius, Rachel Lynn Golden, and Brooke Stott
Proposal Title: Kindred, an innovative model that integrates ketamine-assisted therapy into group therapy

Submission #6048
Team Members: Henry Brown, Duncan Van Dusen, and Sierra Castedo de Martell
Proposal Title: Economic evaluation calculators (CeCalc) and services for recovery community organizations

Submission #6052
Team Members: Evan Crosby, Katia Kutina, and Julia Pottorff
Proposal Title: User Friendly: Building a Handheld Raman Spectroscopy "Keychain" to End Fentanyl Overdoses Among Recreational Users

Submission #6054
Team Members: Jose Gutierrez, Liz Nguyen, Erik Quan, Remy Bizimungu, Alex Ruiz, John Marx, and Tyler Steffenson
Proposal Title: Project SafeUse: A Mobile Technology Solution for Reducing Overdose Deaths through Community-Based Monitoring and Intervention

Submission #6055
Team Members: Markeita Hope, Maryam Hassani, and Ericka Dupclay
Proposal Title: MARY, a wellness wearable and peer led service

NIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and applauds their efforts to translate their research ideas into products that address substance use disorders.

If you have questions about this challenge, contact the NIDA Challenge team at NIDAChallenge@nih.gov.

2023

Congratulations to all Winners!

Submission #4354 
Team Members: Barbara St. Marie, Nate Shaw, Alison Lynch, Laura Markewicz, Doug Nelson, and You Wang
Proposal Title: Reducing Opioid Misuse and Opioid Use Disorder Through Early Identification

Submission #4426 
Team Members: Clara Guo, Aleksandra Galaszewicz, and Nicolas Kim 
Proposal Title: Lucid.Care Labs: quantifying behavioral health

Submission #4437 
Team Members: Heidi Lynch, Charlotte Blais, and Lydie Blundon
Proposal Title: Kadia Health Digital App

Submission #4442
Team Members: Sarah Clingan and Lori Mattingly
Proposal Title: XR Remedy: Immersive Telehealth Designed with the Patient's Needs in Mind

Submission #4444
Team Members: Beth Stormshak, Lisa Reiter, and Milagra Tyler
Proposal Title: A digital health tool for families to prevent substance use disorders in children

Submission #4446
Team Members: Rosita Wong, Sean Allen, Yogesh Khatri, and Michael Tong
Proposal Title: Develop an Office of AI JayBots

Submission #4447
Team Members: Alex Hatoum and Spencer Huggett
Proposal Title: Algorithms to Power the Next Wave of Drug Discovery for Substance Use Disorders

Submission #4448
Team Members: Kelly Vinh, Ethan Hernandez, Ben Breen, and Rachel Sloans
Proposal Title: Vaping Cessation Device: Reimagining the E-Cigarette

Submission #4453
Team Members: David Lee, Juan Carlos Pacheco, Alan Brookhart, and Kyle Jensen 
Proposal Title: Combatting the dual chronic pain and opioid epidemic through a machine learning software for improved medicinal cannabis care

Submission #4454
Team Members: Somilez Francis, Shawkut Ali, and Arletha Lizana
Proposal Title: EquiCare: Bridging Health Gaps through Substance Use Support

Submission #4460
Team Members: Kaileigh Byrne, Alain Litwin, and Sab Babu
Proposal Title: Digital App for Stimulant Use Disorder Recovery Initiation and Maintenance

Submission #4461
Team Members: Asher Varon, Mahima Srivastava, and Srinivasan Raghavan
Proposal Title: QuikReversal: Accessible and Disposable Closed-Loop Wearable for Overdose Detection and Antidote Delivery

Submission #4467
Team Members: Lola Akintola, Yang Wang, and Luana Colloca
Proposal Title: A Personalized Virtual Reality Environment Tool to Mitigate Opioid Use Disorder

Submission #4470
Team Members: Chandra Fincke, Jeanie Chung, and Andrew Penna
Proposal Title: TaeSun: a convenient, portable, and all-inclusive fentanyl testing solution

Submission #4472
Team Members: Samay Shah, Huzefa Johar, Cole Olson, and Amy Pham
Proposal Title: Cellulose Nanofiber Hydrogel Bandage to Address the Xylazine Ulcer Epidemic

NIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and applauds their efforts to translate their research ideas into products that address substance use disorders. If you have questions about this challenge, contact the NIDA Challenge team at NIDAChallenge@nih.gov.

“Substance Use Prevention Services in Primary Care” Challenge

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is launching the “Substance Use Prevention Services in Primary Care” Challenge. The United States is experiencing a significant behavioral health crisis, putting substantial strain on the health care system. Primary care practices are one potential setting in which to address this crisis, but primary care providers (PCPs) face substantial barriers in identifying individuals who may be at risk for substance use and delivering evidence-based prevention interventions to reduce the risk for use. This Challenge seeks creative, visionary, and actionable plans to implement substance use prevention interventions in primary care.

Winners Announced

In February 2023, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) announced the “Substance Use Prevention Services in Primary Care” Challenge. The judging of submissions is now complete. NIDA thanks all solvers for their thoughtful primary care-based models and is delighted to share the results of the Challenge.NIDA is thrilled to announce three winners of $25,000 prizes for their submissions to the “Substance Use Prevention Services in Primary Care” Challenge.

Submission Team: Timothy Sowicz, PhD, RN and Tarnia Newton, DNP, FNP-C, The University of Arizona College of Nursing; Carrie Ann Langley, DNP, PhD, MPH, PMHNP-BC, The University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Submission Title: Community Health Worker-led Substance Use Prevention Model for Recently Incarcerated Persons

Submission Team: Deepa Camenga, MD, MHS, and Mahnoosh Sharifi, MD, MPH, Yale Schools of Medicine and Public Health; Kammarauche Aneni, MD, MHS, Yale School of Medicine; Benjamin Oldfield, MD, MHS, Fair Haven Community Health Care

Submission Title: Making Substance Use Prevention as Easy as Vaccination! Leveraging Machine Learning to Deliver Personalized Substance Use Prevention Interventions in Primary Care& ( 

Submission Team: Constance van Eeghen, DrPH, Michelle Shepard, MD, PhD, Gail Rose, PhD, Alyssa Consigli, RD, CPHQ, and Peter Jackson, MD, University of Vermont; and Brittany Lindsey, LMHC, HealthCentric Advisors

Submission Title: Clinical Screening and Peer Interventions to Prevent Substance Use in At-Risk Adolescents

NIDA is also excited to announce the following honorable mention winners, which will receive cash prizes of $5,000 each.

University of Arkansas – The Rapid Razorback Screening Campaign (RRSC)University of North Carolina and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, with community experts from 

WakeMed Children’s Primary Care, RTI International, Arizona State University, Boston University, and Kaiser Permanente – Substance Use Prevention Screening and Intervention in Primary Care: The Prevention 2U Model

Arizona State University, University of Utah, Bayless Integrated Healthcare, and Family Check-Up 4 Health Community Advisory Board – Family Check-Up 4 Health (FCU4Health)

University of Washington and Justice for Girls Coalition of Washington State – Girls advocacy and impact network +: A gender-responsive substance use prevention model for girl-identified youthNIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and applauds their efforts in developing innovative models for substance use risk screening and prevention services in primary care.

Get more information on the Substance Use Prevention Services in Primary Care Challenge .

Cause of Death Elucidated (CODE) in Drug Overdose Challenge

UPDATE: NIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and is excited to announce the winners. See the official announcement .The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is launching the “Cause of Death Elucidated (CODE) in Drug Overdose” Challenge, which is soliciting ideas for novel postmortem toxicology screening tools that would be used to inform and streamline suspected drug overdose death investigations and to improve drug specification in overdose death counts. It is not expected or required that solvers currently have working prototypes. Solvers with prototypes at any stage of development or with prototypes that may be pivoted to postmortem toxicology screening are encouraged to submit their ideas to the Challenge. Ideas submitted to the Challenge must have a strong and rigorous scientific basis and should demonstrate that the proposed solution will be technically feasible with further support for development. To complement NIDA’s efforts with this Challenge, NIDA also intends to announce separate funding opportunities, available to all interested parties and subject to applicable competitive processes, to support research and development efforts in this area.

Product Prototypes to Combat Drug Craving Challenge

UPDATE: NIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and is excited to announce the winners. See the official announcement .The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is announcing the “Product Prototypes to Combat Drug Craving” Challenge. The Challenge goal is to solicit working prototypes of multifaceted products that will help with drug craving in people who experience substance use problems or with substance use disorder (SUD). Ideally, these multifaceted product prototypes would combine several different tools or features to address drug craving, providing long-term, on-demand, and personalized comprehensive assistance that can ultimately reduce the likelihood of return to use (also known as recurrence). NIDA expects that the Challenge will inspire many different product prototypes to help people address their drug cravings and prevent recurrence of drug use.

Mapping Patient Journeys in Drug Addiction Treatment Challenge

UPDATE: NIDA sincerely appreciates all the solvers who entered the Challenge and is excited to announce the winners. The Challenge goal is to inspire the creation of actionable patient journey maps that might further the understanding of the obstacles that patients face in getting treatment for drug addiction, particularly while our country is in the middle of an ongoing opioid crisis. NIDA invites participants to identify specific points during the patient journey where patients encounter the most difficulty, enabling NIDA to focus new research efforts into alleviating those areas of difficulty in patients’ drug addiction treatment journeys. The Challenge will offer up to three awards for first, second, and third place entries of $50,000, $30,000, and $20,000 each, respectively. The total purse is up to $100,000.

I Strengthen My Nation - Challenge Programs

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in partnership with the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB), through the We R Native program is hosting two challenge competitions to recognize the inherent strengths and resiliencies of Indigenous people and culture that foster healthy communities and protect against substance use.

Art Challenge : We invite youth to submit any original form of art and describe how it depicts resilience against drug abuse to win $500 (individual submission) or $1000 (group submission). We will award approximately 25 prizes!

Community Project Intervention Challenge : We invite youth to develop plans for a a project that they believe would augment resilience to substance abuse in communities, submitting to us a plan for the project and video description. Prizes for each proposed project will be up to $10,000 (minimum award $2000).

2016 - Addiction Research: There’s an App for That

The goal of this challenge was to create an app to be used by addiction researchers in future studies which will help to improve the scientific understanding of drug use and addiction. The app will: allow researchers to engage “citizen scientists” and to recruit a large and varied number of willing study participants; present informed-consent materials; collect data frequently on a broad range of variables. NIDA encourages addiction researchers to use the newly available technical capabilities of ResearchKit ™ and seek collaboration(s) with app developers and engineers to create the winning research app. (Submission Period: November 3, 2015 - April 29, 2016.) For more information go to nida.ideascale.com (site discontinued)Award WinnersBased upon the Challenge criteria, the judging panel selected:

First place - Greg Gruse, ICF International Inc., Rockville, MD for the submission entitled “Track the Crave”
Track the Craveis an appdeveloped to target smokers who are trying to quit and willing to provide detailed information about the circumstances surrounding their cravings. This app has the potential to help users in their quit attempt as well as provide a wealth of data that can inform future efforts to provide tailored and adaptive cessation interventions to smokers. The study aims to determine predictors of smoking relapse following a quit attempt, and identify if there are different patterns of quit trajectories. Researchers will be able to use this information to better understand the nuances of the quitting process and better assist smokers in permanently quitting.

Second place - Joshua Song, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI for the submission entitled “Substance Abuse Research Assistant (SARA)”
SARAis a flexible app platform that is customizable by researchers to integrate multiple data collection tools including wearable sensors, cognitive tasks, and self-report relevant for substance use research. The SARA study will focus on adolescents and emerging adults to understand initiation and escalation of drug use among youth. The app has an innovative engagement strategy providing data visualization and dynamic feedback to users.

Third place - Nancy Saccone, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO for the submission entitled “Genomics of Addiction (GENA) App”.
GENA appis a platform for adults who are participating in research programs conducted by genomic company 23andMe. The GENA study aims to integrate the existing 23andMe genetic data with substance use information to identify genetic and biological contributors to addiction. Researchers will drive large-scale human genomic studies of substance use disorders, with the goal of discovering important biological mechanisms and ultimately aiding the development of improved treatment and prevention strategies.We appreciate all of the time and effort that went into each application, and encourage applicants to consider additional NIDA Challenges.

2015 - Harnessing Insights from other Disciplines to Advance Drug Abuse and Addiction Research

After completing a thorough review of the applications received, the judging panel found that none was sufficiently meritorious and responsive to the concept of the challenge. NIDA has therefore decided not to award any prizes. We appreciate all of the time and effort that went into each application. (Submission Period: May 26, 2015 - June 30, 2015)

2015 - Innovations in Measuring and Managing Addiction Treatment Quality

After completing a thorough review of the applications received, the judging panel found that none was sufficiently responsive to the concept of the challenge to meet the standard for a First Prize Award. NIDA is awarding a meritorious/ honorable award of $10,000 to Jeremy Martinez, MD, Matrix Institute on Addictions, Los Angeles, CA for the submission title: “The Patient-Oriented Treatment Information Framework (POTIF)”. We appreciate all of the time and effort that went into each application, and encourage applicants to consider additional NIDA Challenges. (Submission Period: Jan. 14, 2015 - June 1, 2015)

Challenge Program Staff

Elena Koustova, Ph.D., MBA 
Director, Office of Translational Initiatives and Program Innovations (OTIPI)
NIDA Challenge Manager
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
6001 Executive Blvd Room 4286, MSC 9555
Bethesda, MD 20892-9555
Phone: (301) 496-8768