FOA issued by NIDDK,  NIAAA, NINR, and the ODS will provide resources to validate candidate biomarkers for well-defined human diseases of the liver, kidney, urological tract, and digestive and hematologic systems, as well as endocrine and metabolic disorders, diabetes and its complications, and obesity, for which there are no or very few biomarkers, or for which standard biomarkers are currently prohibitively invasive or expensive. A biomarker is an indicator of a disease process, and could replace hard clinical end points as a measure of the effect of new therapies. Appropriate studies will validate candidate biomarkers in well-defined patient populations, provide new technologies to monitor biomarkers or establish reliable assays for validated markers. Progress in this area has the potential to advance translational research related to efficacy of treatments and bio-behavioral interventions. This FOA is not appropriate for biomarker discovery projects.  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-09-204.html