Research News - March 17, 2017

Thanks to everyone who attended Monday’s MGH Leadership Meeting/Town Hall discussion. You can view the meeting – which focused primarily on the status and impact of the recent executive orders on immigration by clicking here.

In addition, I’d like to call your attention to the following resources, which may be helpful:

• “Executive Orders on Immigration – Status & Impact” presentation slides.
• Practical Guidance and Support for Our Commitment to Inclusion, Our Patients, and to Each Other
• Flyers featuring the MGH Diversity & Inclusion Statement and shorter welcome statements – which can be posted in patient care and employee work areas – are available for pickup at the Photography Lab (Bulfinch 045). 
• Immigration Resources:
  • Immigration Legal Resource Providers
  • Immigration Legal Services
• STAT News Opinion Piece by M. Ihsan Kaadan, Syrian physician and clinical research coordinator in the MGH Cardiology

If you would like to submit a question regarding the executive orders related to immigration not addressed in the materials above please click here.  We will compile responses in a frequently asked questions document that will be posted for all MGH employees to access.  

If you plan on adding interns or students to your staff for the summer, please reach out to Susan Horan a Bulfinch Temporary Service at (617) 724-6459 or Shoran@partners.org for more information.

Click here to read the latest news from the NIH Office for Extramural Research.

Wednesday, April 5, Simches Auditorium 3.110

Please mark your calendars and plan to attend!

The annual MGH Celebration of Science and the Warren Triennial Prize and Symposium will be held on Wednesday, April 5, 2017 in Simches Auditorium (3.110), broadcasting to Isselbacher Auditorium at CNY 149. Click here to view the full agenda!

More information on the event, as well as our Celebration of Science book, will be sent in the near future. Stay tuned!

Please note that there will not be a formal meeting of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) or a poster session this year.

Monday, March 27, 2017, 4pm to 5pm, CNY 149, Isselbacher Auditorium - 7th Floor

“Identifying the essential functions of the E2F transcription factor”
Nicholas Dyson, Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine Harvard Medical School
Scientific Director – Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center

Thursday, March 23, 2:00 - 3:00pm, Simches Room 3.120

Sponsored by the MGH Division of Clinical Research and the MGH Biostatistics Center

Lynn Simpson, Research Data & Analytics Services Manager and Jeremy Alphonse, EDC Project Analyst

Enterprise Research Infrastructure & Services (ERIS)
As of October 1, 2016: Enterprise Research Infrastructure & Services, ERIS, has an enterprise license for LabArchives for all researchers to use at no cost. LabArchives is a web-based application designed for scientists to organize and share laboratory data with their study team, department, across Partners institutions and with external collaborators. Access rights are controlled by the notebook owner and can be modified to suit the individual needs of each researcher, educator, or contributor.
This session is for LabArchives users, new and current, to meet and discuss how sites/labs are using the application, lessons learned, and share knowledge. Coffee and snacks provided!

More information and how to access LabArchives is available on the Research IS Computing website.

Thursday, March 30, 12:00 - 2:00p.m., WebEx, Prudential Center or Assembly Row
This month, Tim White, Associate Director, PHS Infrastructure Technology Services (ITS), will discuss the recent reorganization involving Integrated Network Communications and Technical Services Operations (TSO). The PHS Clinical Systems Integration Team will also discuss its use of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). FIHR is the latest standard to be developed under the HL7 organization and is a standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically.  RSVP Online by 3/28. Contact rcc@partners.org with questions about Tech Lunch.

Thursday, March 23, 12:00 PM, CNY 149, 7th Floor, Isselbacher Auditorium

Title: “The melanoma revolution:  therapeutic challenges and opportunities born from unique disease pathogenesis”
Speaker: David Fisher, MD, PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital

Contact Person – Fiona Chen (617/726-1527)
http://www.massgeneral.org/ciid/ourseminars/seminarseries.aspx
The MGH Immunology Seminar Series is supported in part by donations from Amgen and Sanofi

May 4th and 11th 2:00-3:30, Simches Research Building, Room 3.110

Speaker: Ruslan Sadreyev, Director of Bioinformatics

This introductory mini-course is intended for experimentalist who would like to get oriented in basic Bioinformatics concepts and tools. It is intended as a primer that would allow you to better understand general ideas and approaches and to start asking the right questions about your data. If you want to drill very deeply into a specific question or to get hands-on experience, this probably isn't a course for you. However, we are open to organizing more in-depth courses and workshops in the future.

Registration is required. For registration or additional information on the course please visit the course page: Introduction to Bioinformatics

Contact Tiereny Morrison-Rohlfs at tmorrison-rohlfs@partners.org with any questions.

Monday, April 10th, 2017, 12:00pm – 1:00pm, Simches Research Building, Room 3.110

Sponsored by the MGH Division of Clinical Research

Dr. Calum MacRae, MD, PhD,
Chief, Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

There are a number of practical challenges that must be overcome if the current vision for precision medicine and ‘learning’ healthcare systems is to be realized.  These include changes in the scale and timing of diagnosis and intervention, the pace of drug discovery and the information content for much of biomedicine. Pilots of potential approaches to some of these challenges will be described including efforts in co-clinical modeling of disease, phenotype discovery and the creation of platforms for pragmatic clinical trials.

Light lunch will be served.

Registration is required. Please contact Jillian Tonelli with any questions.

Tuesday, April 18th | 12:30 – 1:30pm | Simches Room 3.120

Speaker: Barbara Steiner, EdM, Senior Clinical Research Coordinator,
Diabetes Research Center, MGH

In this session, we will identify strategies to recruit and retain subjects from the practical standpoint of a study coordinator working on a clinical trial. We will present the advantages and disadvantages of various methods and discuss outreach skills that support recruitment and retention.

Registration is required. Please contact Tiereny Morrison-Rohlfs with questions.

Information on funding opportunities offered through the HMS Foundation Funds is now available.
For some awards, MGH receives invitations to submit their own nominations. In this case, MGH faculty must first apply for the MGH nomination through ECOR and a committee at MGH will select the final MGH candidate(s) to submit applications to the foundations. 

Click here to view a chart listing the HMS Foundation Funds that are currently available and the Institution that MGH faculty should apply through.

ECOR handles the application process for a number of limited submission opportunities through MGH. The ADA Pathways to Stop Diabetes funding opportunity is currently accepting letters of intent through the ECOR grant manager until Monday, March 20

Please direct all inquiries regarding the application process at HMS to Clare Lamont, Program Coordinator, Office for Academic and Clinical Affairs, 617-432-7463, clare_lamont@hms.harvard.edu. 

If you have questions regarding the MGH application process, please email MGH ECOR, ecor@mgh.harvard.edu. 

The Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) is accepting applications for the April 3rd deadline for the Deliberative Interim Support Funding.  April is the second of three standing deadlines for these awards in Fiscal Year 2017.  The next deadline will be August 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?
Monday, April 3, 2017 - 5:00 PM

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

Preliminary applications are now being accepted by the Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) for the Charles H. Hood Foundation 2018 Major Grants Initiative to Advance Child Health research award. 

What are they?
Major Grants Initiative to Advance Child Health research award
The Charles H. Hood Foundation 2018 Major Grants Initiative to Advance Child Health supports outstanding investigators conducting innovative and transformative research in child health. The overall goal of the Program remains the funding of translational or clinical research that will improve child health clinical outcomes, or improve health care access, affordability, and quality. For the 2018 grant cycle, the Hood Foundation requests applications related to either of two areas of child health research: Neonatology or Brain Science and Child Development. 

The Major Grants Initiative is a component of the Hood Foundation’s research funding portfolio. Since 1942, the Foundation has supported investigators at New England research institutions to improve the health and quality of life for children. The Hood Foundation Child Health Research Awards Program has launched the careers of close to 600 junior faculty whose discoveries have contributed to significant improvements in child health. Since 1989, the Foundation has also supported 47 Postdoctoral Fellows conducting projects spanning the continuum from basic laboratory research to clinical and health services research.

MGH is eligible to nominate one candidate.

When is the deadline?  
MGH Internal Preliminary Application Deadline:  Monday, April 10, 2017 - 3:00 p.m.

How do I learn more and apply?
2018 Major Grants Initiative to Advance Child Health research award - Click here

The Harrington Scholar-Innovator Award recognizes physician-scientist innovators throughout the U.S. whose research has the potential to change standard of care. The Scholar-Innovator Award provides research and drug development support to help bridge the gap between basic discovery and the clinic.

Multi-Level Support for Research Grant Recipients
Harrington Discovery Institute is committed to providing Scholar-Innovator awardees with a full level of support, including:

• $100,000 guaranteed, opportunity to qualify for up to $700,000/2 years
• Pharmaceutical industry drug development expertise and project management support through our Innovation Support Center

April 5, 2017 - Letter of Intent Deadline
May 31, 2017 - Full Application Deadline (For those invited)

For more information of eligibility and to apply, please click here.

The newly established Translational Research Institute (TRI) headquartered at Baylor College of Medicine seeks innovative and disruptive technologies, techniques and countermeasures to enable and enhance human exploration of deep space. We are soliciting proposals from any US-based biomedical researcher or company, regardless of previous NASA funding.

Funding topics of current interest are:

• Omics capabilities for use during spaceflight missions
• Long duration medication stability
• Human brain imaging
• Inflight surgical capabilities
• Increasing organisms’ resistance to radiation
• Pharmaceuticals that preserve muscle mass
• Inflight production of fresh food
• Microbiome based therapies for improving health in spaceflight
• Lymphatic imaging in microgravity

The details of this TRI research announcement (NNJ16ZSA001N-TRI) may be viewed at https://www.bcm.edu/centers/space-medicine/translational-research-institute under Funding.

Proposers must submit a letter of intent through nspires.nasaprs.com by April 10, 2017 in order to submit a full proposal. A pre-proposal webinar, during which TRI management will answer questions regarding the research announcement, will be held on March 23, 2017 and is open to all interested proposers.

The Translational Research Institute (TRI) is funded by a cooperative agreement from NASA to Baylor College of Medicine with consortium partners California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Institute’s mission is to lead a national effort in translating cutting-edge, emerging terrestrial research into applied space flight and to support human risk-mitigation for exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit.

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.

• ADA Pathways to Stop Diabetes
• Team-Based Design in Biomedical Engineering Education (R25)

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 note that any grant that brings in less than 15% in indirect costs (IDC) will need to be supplemented up to the 15% equivalent by existing investigator or departmental sundry funds. Resolution of this issue must occur prior to submission of the award.

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.

Week of 3/17/17

• Medical Research Grants:  Reach Awards, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer (ALSF)
• 'A' Award, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer (ALSF)
• Lupus Insight Prize, Alliance for Lupus Research (ALR)
• Preclinical Drug Discovery, Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF)
• Program to Accelerate Clinical Trials (PACT) RFP, Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF)
• Clinical Research Grant, American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation (ASHFoundation)
• Grand Challenges Exploration:  Health Systems Strengthening: Ensuring Effective Health Supply Chains (Round 19), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) 
• Grand Challenges Exploration:  New Approaches for Improving Timeliness of Routine Immunizations in Low-Resource Settings (Round 19), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) 
• Grand Challenges Exploration:  Innovations for Integrated Diagnostics Systems (Round 19), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) 
• Grand Challenges Exploration:  Wearables and Technology for Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health Behavior Change (Round 19), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
• PEACE Grants, Mind & Life Institute 
• Collaborative Awards in Science, Wellcome Trust

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

Deliberative Interim Support Funding
Application Deadline: April 3, 2017

MGH ECOR Formulaic Bridge Funding Support
Application Deadline: April 7, 2017; 7th day of each month

KL2 Catalyst Medical Research Investigator Training (CMeRIT) Award
Application Deadline: March 30

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

geXc Broad Symposium 2017 – March 28

Child Health Symposium - Putting Kids First: Facilitating Multisite Pediatric Trials – April 4

Harvard Digestive Diseases Center (HDDC) Spring Symposium – April 4

FY16 NIH Market Analysis

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