Research News - October 28, 2016

Changing seasons focus our attention on the ways that innovation changes behavior, enhances research and grows the spirit of discovery. This newsletter highlights the breakthroughs of our Harvard appointed faculty, the industry leading work of Partners Connected Health, entrepreneurial spirit of Editas and translational research of our early career cancer faculty. It also recognizes the ten winners of our highly competitive Innovation Discovery Grants and important news about the merger of Partners HealthCare International with Partners Innovation. Finally, we are pleased to partner with STAT for this edition of the Innovation newsletter. Click here for our Fall edition

Monday, October 31, 2016, 4:00 – 5:00 pm, CNY149, 7th Floor, Isselbacher Auditorium

Imaging chemokine function in disease
Andrew D. Luster, MD, PHD
Chief, Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology
Persis, Cyrus and Marlow B. Harrison Professor of Medicine

Tuesday, November 1, 4:00 – 5:00 pm, CNY 149, Room 2.204

Integrating nanomedicine and imaging
Willem Mulder, PhD
Professor of Radiology  
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Thursday, November 3, 2016, 9:30 - 11:30 am, Simches Research Center, Room 3.110

Dr. Michael Lauer, Deputy Director of Extramural Research at the NIH will be visiting MGH on Thursday, November 3, 2016 to speak exclusively to the MGH research community!  Dr. Lauer’s talk will focus on
“Evidence-Based Funding: Supporting Biomedical Research with Austere Budgets”, followed by an “Open Mike” session. 

Due to high demand, we will be streaming to the following locations:

• CNY 149, Isselbacher Auditorium
• CNY 114, Conference Room D
• Ragon Institute Auditorium

Please plan to arrive early, as seating is limited.

Thursday, November 10, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, Garrod Mendel Conference Room

Are you interested in finding research or programmatic funding?  Pivot contains open calls for proposals and letters of intent for grants, awards, prizes, and fellowships, as well as support for travel, conferences, and equipment acquisition.  Federal, philanthropic, commercial, and international funding sponsors are included.  Pivot allows researchers to easily limit results by criteria including citizenship or residency, geographic location, or professional rank.

Come to this seminar to learn how you can:

• Access Pivot and save searches to receive automated alerts regarding relevant funding opportunities
• Diversify your funding portfolio by employing strategies to match your research with sponsors’ unique funding priorities

Please feel free to contact Joseph Connolly Jdconnolly@partners.org with any other questions regarding the course.

Thursday, November 10, 4:00 – 6:00 pm, NRB 1031, (77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA)

Please join other postdocs, PhD students, faculty, trainees and staff for a short talk with Sean Whelan, PhD about his life and career and then stay for the mixer.

RSVP here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LGBTQintheLabs

Thursday, November 10, 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

Discover Brigham brings together our community with the broader Boston health care ecosystem to educate and inspire collaboration around innovative science, technology and medicine. The theme of this year’s Discover Brigham is "Collaborate, Translate and Accelerate" as a reflection of similar goals for the new Brigham Building for Transformative Medicine at 60 Fenwood Road. Thursday, Nov. 10, 11am – 6 p.m., at BWH. Sign-Up Here Today!

Thursday, December 1, 12:00 – 1:00pm, Simches Building, 2nd Floor, Garrod/Mendel Conference Room

Speaker: Amy Ben-Arieh, Senior Human Research Specialist/Administrative Chair, PHRO
Did you know that most of your research subjects are reading at the 8th-grade level or lower? Learn how to write the simplest, clearest consent forms, so that every one of your subjects can be fully informed. This workshop will teach you specific skills for writing easy-to-understand documents. The learning objectives of this session are for participants to understand the elements of consent, acquire plain language tips for editing research consent forms, and identify which Partners consent form template is appropriate for your protocol.

This session is limited to 25 participants to facilitate interaction.
Registration is required. Please contact Joseph Connolly with any questions.

Thursday, December 15, 12:00 – 1:00pm, Simches Building, 2nd Floor, Garrod/Mendel Conference Room

Speaker: Charlene Malarick, RN, BSN, CCRC, Partners Human Research Quality Improvement Program

Informed consent: it’s more than just a document. Do you know the ethical considerations that factor into obtaining truly informed consent? If your study involves vulnerable populations, such as children, are you knowledgeable of the special protections afforded to them, and the Partner’s policies governing their consent? In this session, Charlene Malarick, RN, BSN, CCRC of the Partners Quality Improvement Program will discuss these issues and how to fulfill the Partner’s policies for documenting the informed consent process. She will describe the informed consent process, review vulnerable populations, the special protections afforded to them, and how these apply to the informed consent process, and discuss how to effectively comply with the Partners policies for documenting informed consent.

This session is limited to 25 participants to facilitate interaction.

Registration is required. Please contact Joseph Connolly with any questions.

The Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) is accepting applications for the December 1st deadline for the Deliberative Interim Support Funding.  December is the 1st of three standing deadlines for these awards in Fiscal Year 2017.  The next deadline will be April 1, 2017.  

What are they?
This is open to Principal Investigators during a lapse or delay in their research funding from the NIH or another Federal agency (e.g., the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense).  Investigators must have applied for independent, long-term support (R01, R21, U01 and P01).  The Deliberative Interim Support process is open to:

1. Investigators whose grants were not scored or whose scores were not translated into a percentile ranking.
2. Investigators whose grants received scores >20th percentile.
3. Investigators who have already received Formulaic Bridge Funding or Deliberative Interim Support on their A0 grant application and are now requesting support for their A1 or A0 resubmission.  Investigators in this category must apply through the Deliberative Interim Support process for their A1 and A0 resubmission regardless of the score they received on their resubmitted grant.

When is the deadline?
Thursday, December 1, 2016 - 5:00 PM

How do I learn more and apply?
Deliberative Interim Support Funding - Click here

We ask that all MGH Investigators interested in applying for any limited submission award submit a Letter of Intent (see detailed instructions below) to the MGH Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) by the deadline indicated for each award to be considered to receive an institutional nomination.

Process
Submit a one- to two-page Letter of Intent (LOI) to the MGH Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) via email to ecor@partners.org.  In addition to your LOI, please include an NIH Biosketch.

The letter of intent should include:

• Name of the Principal Investigator with appropriate contact information
• A descriptive title of the potential application
• Brief description of the project
• Brief description of why you specifically should be selected to receive institutional nomination for this award

If there is more than one MGH investigator interested in applying for each limited submission award, the LOIs will be used to assess candidates and a review and selection process will take place.

Current Limited Submission Funding Opportunities
Please click here for more information and for our internal deadlines.

• Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure Program FY 2017 (P2C)
• BD2K Research Education Curriculum Development:  Data Science Overview for Biomedical Scientists (R25)
• Centers for HIV/AIDS-Related Structural Biology (P50)
• Alzheimer's Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC) (U24)
• NINDS Institutional Center Core Grants to Support Neuroscience Research (P30)
• T Cell Reagent Research for the Study of Allergic Diseases (U19)
• Asthma and Allergic Diseases Cooperative Research Centers (U19)

If there is a limited submission funding opportunity you do not see listed above or you have any additional questions, please contact Erin McGivney at 617-643-6471.

Please contact Corporate & Foundation Relations in the Office of Development at devcfr@mgh.harvard.edu if you wish to submit a proposal in response to any of these funding opportunities.  Note that proposals are still routed through the standard InfoEd/Research Management process.

• Global Clinical Trials Fund, Alzheimer's Research UK (ARUK)
• Emerging Leader Award, Bay Area Lyme Foundation
• Special Project Award, Bayer AG
• Fellowship Project Award, Bayer AG
• Request for Blepharospasm/Meige Research Proposals, Benign Essential Blepharospasm Research Foundation, Inc. (BEBRF)
• CURE Taking Flight Award, CURE, Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy
• Program Grants, FRAXA Research Foundation
• OHF Global Registry Initiative, Oxalosis and Hyperoxaluria Foundation (OHF)
• Grants, Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA)/PVA Education Foundation

Please click here for further details on these funding opportunities.

For the latest National Institutes of Health notices, requests for applications, and program announcements, follow this link: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/WeeklyIndex.cfm

MGH ECOR Formulaic Bridge Funding Support
Application Deadline: 7th day of each month

NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs)
Application Deadline: November 15, 2016

Boston Biomedical Innovation Center (B-BIC) Accepting PILOT & DRIVE Grant Pre-Proposals

How to Communicate Science and Influence People – November 17