LymeX Healthathon

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) LymeX Innovation Accelerator, posted by NIH

A $250,000 innovation sprint that pays for lived-experience narratives and community-identified priorities from patients, caregivers, and clinicians, then synthesises them into signals for federal decision-makers.

Indicative award

$1k–$100k (total award)Up to $250,000 total. Published tiers: one grand prize $100,000; one first place $50,000; one second place $25,000; two third places $10,000 each; twelve impact prizes $2,500 each; twenty-five storytelling prizes $1,000 each.

Timing

Periodic callsPeriodic calls · AugPublished deadline: 2026-08-21 — 7 days awayOpen until 2026-08-21 at 11:59 PM ET. Runs as a companion to the TOPx HHS Tech Sprint for AI and Invisible Illness; both are LymeX Accelerator sprints rather than a fixed annual cycle.

Who can apply

Practitioner, Community organisation, Master's / undergraduate, Early-career faculty, Any faculty rank

Eligibility

Open to eligible U.S. organizations, U.S. citizens, and permanent residents under the America COMPETES Act and HHS Challenge rules. Anyone can enter, including individuals with no research affiliation. Stories about another person require express written authorization from that person or their lawful representative. A separate CURE ID submission is required to be eligible for the largest cash prizes.

SSWR clusters

Topics

lived experience · narrative documentation · patient-centred research priorities · chronic illness

Apply at

https://www.nih.gov/challenges/lymex-healthathon

This entry

Curated by the working group. Written 2026-08-07. The funder link has not yet been machine-checked.

Amounts and dates on this page are indicative and are maintained by people rather than scraped. Funders change ceilings, windows and eligibility without notice; confirm all details at the source above before applying.

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LymeX Healthathon

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