Research News - July 1, 2022

Are you looking for a new opportunity within the Mass General Research Institute or hoping to promote a newly posted job within your department? Check out the Research Job Board, powered by the Division of Clinical Research! All members of the community are able to submit postings or apply for positions. 

Click here to learn more.

ChemDraw licenses are offered at a discounted rate through the ERIS Research Computing Core. ChemDraw is a powerful, yet easy-to use, tool for producing chemical and biological drawings. You can create your own drawings or use those provided in the library of available templates. 

This is a subscription service with an annual fee, which must be renewed each May 19th, to continue access. Once ordering you will receive an email with installation instructions (new users) or an activation code (renewals). Request through the ERIS Research Computing Core Service Catalog. 

Click here to learn more. 

BioRender licenses are available at a discounted rate through the Research Computing Core. BioRender is a web application that can be used to create scientific figures, diagrams, and illustrations from a scientifically accurate image library, all in a matter of minutes. Using a simple drag and drop model, BioRender will save you time, so you can focus more on the science and less on illustration. BioRender requires no installation and you may log into your account on any computer, to access the BioRender portal. For more information on BioRender, go to the Research Computing Core's software page or order now at rcservices.partners.org (MGB login required). All questions may be directed to rcc@partners.org

The Research Computing Core offers JMP software licenses at a discounted rate via rcservices.partners.org. JMP is a data analysis tool which Users leverage for its powerful statistical and analytic capabilities.

The Summer Research Trainee Program (SRTP) has served as the Center for Diversity and Inclusion’s (CDI) student pipeline efforts start. The goal of the program is to inspire students who are underrepresented in medicine (UiM) to consider careers in academic medicine by immersing them in cutting-edge research opportunities. 

A select group of 30 graduate and medical students were accepted into the 2022 summer program and will have a personalized research experience conducting novel research in a vast variety of biomedical science and health policy research areas. Along with attending workshops and seminars students are required to prepare an abstract and an oral presentation of their research project during the eight-week program. MGH faculty abstract reviewers and student final presentation panelists are needed to review and provide feedback. 

If you are interested in being a student Abstract Reviewer or Final Presentation Panelist, please review the dates below and provide your availability by clicking the appropriate link. CDI will assign a date/time to you based on your availability. 

If you have additional questions or concerns, please email Karen Osborne Green (kosborne@partners.org) or CDI (cdi@mgh.harvard.edu). 

Abstract Reviewers: 

• Review 3 – 4 abstracts & discuss feedback with students via Zoom 
• Zoom meeting options (1 hour/15 min per student):
  • July 12: 8 - 9a, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, 4:30 - 6:30 pm Or 
  • July 13: 8 - 9a, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, 4:30 - 6:30 pm 
• Provide your availability: https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/epYlglXa 

Final Presentation Panelists 

• Listen & score student presentations & provide feedback o Student final presentations schedule:
  • July 14 (1 student): 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm 
  • July 27 (14 students): 9:00 am – 1:00 pm 
  • July 28 (13 students): 1:00 p – 6:30 pm 
  • August 3 (2 students): 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm 
• Provide your availability: https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/aM8xjn1e

Wednesday, July 6, 2022, 4:00 – 5:00 pm, Zoom 

Functional Neurological Disorder: Research Insights Bridging Physical & Mental Health 

David L. Perez, MD, MMSc
Departments of Neurology and Psychiatry
Director, Functional Neurological Disorder Unit & Research Group
Associate Professor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School

The Chester Pierce Research Society (CPRS) is sponsored by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI). CPRS is a speaker series named in honor of MGH's late Professor Emeritus in Psychiatry, Chester Pierce. Dr. Pierce was the first and most senior African-American physician-scientist at MGH. CPRS is designed to promote diversity and health equity by featuring the novel research of investigators to the MGH community. 

Click here to RSVP. 

Please visit the MGB web page for COVID funding opportunities that provides a central database for researchers to view open and competitive funding announcements. 

We have aggregated opportunities from federal and private funding sources including NIH, DoD, CDC, EPA, foundations, and more. The database defaults to sorting by award amount and can also be sorted by deadline or filtered by research focus. 

Upcoming deadlines:

• No upcoming deadlines

Recently added: 

• No new additions 

The Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) is now accepting applications for Interim Support Funding. 

What are they?
Interim Support Funding The Interim Support Funding (ISF) Program 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 intent of the program is to rescue strong scientific programs that are in need of bridge funding in order to sustain their research. Applications will be accepted regardless of percentile or score, including applications that were not discussed. 

When is the deadline?
Monday, August 1, 2022 - 5:00 PM 

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

Applications are now being accepted by the Mongan Institute Center for Aging and Serious Illness for the The Chong Jin Park Innovative Early Career Pilot Award in Aging and Palliative Care & The Ki Sub Joung Innovative Junior Faculty Pilot Award in Aging and Palliative Care 

What is it?
The Mongan Institute Center for Aging and Serious Illness supports innovative, transdisciplinary research that leverages MGH’s and the broader community’s strengths to improve the well-being of older adults and those with serious illness. The Center for Aging and Serious Illness Early Career Pilot Awards in Aging and Palliative Care will support innovative applied clinical research or implementation pilot project(s) (T3-4) focused on improving the evidence base for aging or serious illness care. This award will fund initial pilot work to provide data and planning for an externally funded, full-scale project grant (e.g., K award, R01, PCORI etc.). Applicants who hold a full-time appointment in any MGH Department, are pursuing a research career, and meet the eligibility criteria below are encouraged to apply. 

The Chong Jin Park Innovative Early Career Pilot Award in Aging and Palliative Care will support research focused on achieving I health equity and improving the lives of older people and or those with serious illness through research in population and health care delivery science. The Ki Sub Joung Innovative Junior Faculty Pilot Award in Aging and Palliative Care will support research focused on improving the lives of older people and or those with serious illness, with an emphasis on the care of those living with cognitive impairment or their caregivers. 

How much is the award?
The award is $50,000 for one year plus 20% indirect costs and is effective October 1, 2022. 

When is the deadline?
August 11, 2022 by 5 pm EDT 

How do I learn more and apply?

• Click here to read more. 
• Questions should be sent to centerforagingandseriousillness@mgh.harvard.edu

 ** Ph.D. or M.D. or equivalent required for eligibility. Open to researchers in the U.S., U.K. and Canada. 

Call Opens: June 1
Letters of Intent (LOI) Due: July 18, 2022 

Harrington Discovery Institute (HDI) and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) invite you to submit an LOI for the 2022 ADDF-Harrington Scholar Award. This grant is designed to accelerate the translation of academic discoveries into medicines for treating, preventing, or curing patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Of particular interest are targets related to neurovascular health and epigenetics. Researchers working on drug development programs that are relevant to, but not presently focused on, the Alzheimer’s field are encouraged to apply. In addition to grant funding, HDI provides guidance and oversight in all aspects of drug development, while taking no rights to intellectual property, which is retained by you/your institution. 

To learn more about the award, click here. 

To submit an online application, go to ADDF’s funding system and create an account. 

Click here to view the FAQ. 

Application questions?
Contact grants@alzdiscovery.org or HDIQuestions@HarringtonDiscovery.org. 

Scientific inquiries?
Contact Meriel Owen, PhD, ADDF at mowen@alzdiscovery.org. 

About the McCance Center for Brain Health
The McCance Center for Brain Health is a clinical and research center founded to maximize human potential through better brain health. Through its ground-breaking research, clinical innovation, and global collaborations, the Center aims to reduce the incidence of common brain diseases through effective primary prevention. 

About the McCance Brain Care ScoreTM
A large body of evidence links a set of modifiable factors with risk of stroke, dementia, depression and other brain diseases, offering a substantial opportunity for prevention of common brain diseases in primary care. Yet, unlike heart care and cancer prevention, preventive brain care has traditionally not been incorporated into routine primary care. 

Developed in the Center’s clinical-translational program, the McCance Brain Care Score™ (BCS) answers a key question with scientific validity: “What can I do to take good care of my brain?” Designed to be implemented in health care settings anywhere, the BCS compiles the modifiable risk factors that impact brain health and provides a mechanism for anyone to track and prioritize their brain care through an approach that focuses on steps any of us can take. 

For more information on the BCS, please click here. 

Opportunity Snapshot
Towards its aim to integrate brain care into routine medical care, the McCance Center is investing in the development of innovative methods for the implementation of the McCance Brain Care Score™ in primary care practices across diverse communities. The center is seeking proposals from partners with expertise in implementation science to propose novel approaches for catalyzing the uptake of the BCS by practitioners, patients, payors, and policymakers.

With the long-term goal of improving brain health, proposals will need to address the shorter-term goal of increasing engagement in brain care across communities. Specifically, we encourage proposals to address: 

• Strategies for engaging communities, particularly those impacted by healthcare disparities. e.g. Patient and Community Advisory Committees 
• Mechanisms for sustained behavior change among patients, practitioners, and healthcare systems. 
• Establishing measurements of success of engagement by these groups 
• Integration of digital health and technologies 

Criteria for Review:
Successful applications will have a timeline with milestones that culminates in the submission of a competitive federal grant proposal (e.g. NIH, PCORI, etc) within 12 months of the award of this SPARC. Criteria for review will include: applicants’ track record of successful funding, the closeness of the proposed aims to the McCance mission, the feasibility of the proposal to yield a competitive grant application. 

Application Instructions:
The proposal: 

• Limited to two pages 
• 12-point Times New Roman font 
• 1” margins all around, single-spaced (excluding references). 
• Sections of the proposal:
  • Specific Aims 
  • Background/Introduction 
  • Methods 
  • Significance 
  • References (not counted towards the 2-page limit) 
• Provide information on your Team. Please include NIH biosketches for all participating investigators 
• Please include a separate budget justification (limit to one page). 

The deadline for proposal submission is July 15. Review will be completed and decisions announced by July 31. Please send proposals to Dr. Akshata Sonni, Scientific Program Director, McCance Center at asonni@partners.org. 

Eligibility Criteria
Any applicant eligible to serve as a Principal Investigator on a federal grant application is welcome to apply for this award. In a separate document and as indicated above, applicants must also provide the bios of the key team members on the project, as well as information on any collaborators or corporate/public sponsors that will be engaged as a part of the project. If applicable, please demonstrate how these collaborators and partners have already been engaged. 

Award Amount
Budgetary requests of up to $150K for one year will be considered 

Duration of Award
1 year 

Selection 
Proposals will be reviewed by a committee appointed by the McCance Center, which will make recommendations to the McCance Center Co-Directors, who will make the final determination. 

The primary mission of this program is to promote the development of a diverse, translational research workforce that is capable of participating and/or leading cross-disciplinary team science relevant for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and AD-related dementias. The trainee will pursue a targeted research project under the mentorship of world-class researchers in the Harvard research community in three key areas:
[1] biology of aging and neurodegeneration;
[2] data sciences, computational biology, statistics, math/engineering/physics;
[3] drug discovery and development 

Most T32 faculty are within the MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and/or Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Training includes targeted coursework, didactic lectures, and a dedicated T32 lecture series. General training includes research conduct, diversity and inclusion, mentoring, career development, and grant development activities. 

Eligibility: PhD, MD, MD/PhD and U.S. citizen or permanent resident (see NIH PAR-18-524), with rolling admission for 4 training slots. Our goal is to recruit a truly diverse T32 trainee pool that is highly representative of URM and women trainees. 

Additional information: Please see https://pricelab.martinos.org/t32-adrd/ for further information including application instructions. Please submit questions to: Krystal Whitfield (T32 Administrative Contact) at T32ADRD@mgh.harvard.edu. 

In honor of 20 years of targeted protein degradation, Arvinas announces $25,000 monetary award to recognize an up-and-coming researcher in the field of targeted protein degradation 

Arvinas, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company creating a new class of drugs based on targeted protein degradation, today announced a global call for entries for their inaugural Early Career Research Award. This award will recognize up-and-coming researchers bringing innovation, new approaches and creative thinking to advance the field of targeted protein degradation; acknowledging their dedication and commitment to this therapeutic approach toward otherwise intractable disease targets. The winner will receive a $25,000 monetary award and will be recognized and formally presented with this award at the 5th Annual Targeted Protein Degradation Summit, October 25-28, 2022, in Boston. 

Researchers in academia, at either the graduate or postdoctoral level at the time of studies conducted and/or published, will be eligible for this award. Applicants must have demonstrated professional and scientific leadership in protein degradation and exhibited scientific curiosity and an established pattern of creative thinking and must not have a direct role in patient diagnosis and/or treatment. Only applicants who meet the full eligibility criteria will be considered.

Applications will be accepted today through August 1, 2022, at midnight Eastern Time. Full eligibility criteria and details on the application process can be found on Arvinas.com.

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: 

1. Name of the Principal Investigator with appropriate contact information 
2. A descriptive title of the potential application 
3. Brief description of the project 
4. 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. 

If there is a limited submission funding opportunity you do not see listed above or you have any additional questions, please let us know at ecor@mgh.harvard.edu. 

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 opportunities. Note that proposals are still routed through the standard Insight/Research Management process. 

Please be aware that any grant that brings in less than 20% in indirect costs (IDC) will need to be supplemented up to the 20 percent equivalent by existing investigator or departmental sundry funds. Resolution of this issue must occur prior to submitting a proposal. Training fellowships from foundations, public charity, and non-profit organizations are excluded from this minimum IDC requirement. 

Week of 07/01/22 

• Career Development Award (CDA), American Academy of Neurology (AAN). $450,000. Application Deadline: September 1 
• Clinical Research Training Scholarships (CRTS), American Academy of Neurology (AAN). $150,000. Application Deadline: September 1 
• Richard Olney Clinician Scientist Development Award in ALS, American Academy of Neurology (AAN). $240,000. Application Deadline: September 1 
• Neuroscience Research Training Scholarship (NRTS), American Academy of Neurology (AAN). $150,000. Application Deadline: September 1 
• Practice Research Training Scholarship, American Academy of Neurology (AAN). $150,000. Application Deadline: September 1 
• AACR-Lung Cancer Initiative at Johnson & Johnson Stimulating Therapeutic Advances through Research Training (START) Grants, American Association for Cancer Research NEW! $225,000. Application Deadline: August 18 
• Underrepresented Minority Fellowship in Gene and Cell Therapy for Oncology, American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. $100,000. Application Deadline: August 1 
• Underrepresented Population Fellowship Award in Gene and Cell Therapy for Any Indication, American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy. $100,000. Application Deadline: August 1 
• Research Grant Program, Amyloidosis Foundation. $50,000. Application Deadline: September 13 
• Advancing Imaging Through Collaborative Projects, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative NEW! Unspecified Amount. Application Deadline: September 8 
• Dynamic Imaging, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative NEW! Unspecified Amount. Application Deadline: August 23 
• Single-Cell Biology Data Insights, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. $400,000. Application Deadline: August 25 
• International Networks of Excellence Program (INEP), Leducq Foundation. $8 million. LOI Deadline: September 13 
• Early Career Investigator Award, National Ataxia Foundation (NAF). $50,000. LOI Deadline: September 28 
• Pioneer SCA3/MJD Translational Research Awards, National Ataxia Foundation (NAF). $100,000. LOI Deadline: September 29 
• Post-Doctoral Fellowship Award, National Ataxia Foundation (NAF). $35,000. LOI Deadline: October 5 
• Seed Money Research Grant, National Ataxia Foundation (NAF). $50,000. LOI Deadline: September 29 
• Clinical Research Pilot Grant Program for Myasthenia Gravis, Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) NEW! $150,000. Application Deadline: October 1 
• Myasthenia Gravis Network (MGNet) Scholar Program, Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN) NEW! $156,000. Application Deadline: October 1 
• Grant Projects, SAGES Education & Research Foundation/Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES). $100,000. Application Deadline: September 7 
•  Sulzberger Institute Grants, Sulzberger Institute for Dermatologic Education/American Academy of Dermatology (AAD). $60,000. LOI Deadline: August 19 

MGH Town Hall Meeting Recordings 

MGB Community Connects

Mentor MGB 

Check out the Coronavirus Resource Guide for MGH Researchers! 

NIH Update for Week Ending July 1, 2022

PCORI - Click here for the latest funding opportunities from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). 

Looking for something you saw in a p9revious Research News release? Check out our archive!