DDRCC Funding Opportunity for Pilot & Feasibility Projects

 Funding Opportunity for Pilot & Feasibility Projects through the

University of Chicago’s NIDDK/NIH-Sponsored

Digestive Diseases Research Core Center (DDRCC)

 

****Interested applicants should contact Drs. Eugene B. Chang (DDRCC Director) Bana Jabri (DDRCC Co-director) or Cathy Nagler (P&F Program Director) prior to submitting a full application by

July 27, 2018*****

 

FULL SUBMISSION DEADLINE: August 31^st, 2018

 

Goals:  The overarching theme of the DDRCC is research in Digestive Health and Disease, including inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and related areas of intestinal inflammation, immunology, the gut microbiome, metabolism, and epithelial biology/cancer of the GI tract.  Pilot and Feasibility applications focused on these “mission” areas will receive higher priority.  Pilot and Feasibility awards are offered in order of priority for the purposes of:

 

1.  Attracting new investigators (Track I), including promising senior research fellows and post-doctoral candidates having the endorsement of their Departments, into the mission areas of the DDRCC. This is the principal target group and is intended ideally for candidates without current NIH or other significant extramural support to initiate research into digestive diseases.

2. Allowing more established faculty members (Track II), who are not currently engaged in gastrointestinal research, to extend their investigations into the mission areas of the DDRCC.

3. Permitting faculty members already engaged in research of Digestive Diseases (Track III) to test a novel hypothesis that is significantly different from the investigator’s mainstream research.  Applications which emphasize DDRCC core use and which will strengthen collaborative interactions among scientists within the digestive disease research community are particularly encouraged. It is strongly anticipated that these pilot projects will enhance the ability of investigators to compete successfully for extramural research in IBD and related areas of gastrointestinal research.

 

Suggested Research Topics:  Broad aspects of basic and translational/clinical research related to enteric microbiology, inflammation, and immunology of the digestive tract and pathogenesis, genetics, pathophysiology, and bench-to-bedside aspects of inflammatory bowel diseases will be given higher priority.  In addition, proposals focused on the examination of growth and differentiation, cancer biology, intestinal epithelial biology and pathobiology of the gastrointestinal tract (including the luminal GI tract, liver, pancreas, biliary system, etc.), as well as basic or clinical research in the areas of nutrition, metabolism, and digestive diseases are appropriate topics for Pilot & Feasibility studies.  Please feel free to ask for guidance if you are unsure about the suitability of your topic or project.

 

Core Facilities/services:

 

·   Integrated Translational Research Core (Bana Jabri, M.D., Ph.D., Joel Pekow, M.D.): Offering the IBD patient registry, tissue biobanking facilities, and support in designing clinical studies.

· Host-Microbe Core (Alexander Chervonsky, M.D., Ph.D., Dionysios Antonopoulos, Ph.D.): Provides unique approaches to the study of host-microbe interactions, including cell/tissue models, gnotobiotic mouse technologies, and approaches for structural and functional profiling of complex microbial communities.

·  Tissue Engineering and Cell Models Core (Eugene B. Chang, M.D., John Alverdy, M.D.): Offering unique cell and tissue models, enteroids/organoids, and mouse models along with molecular and genetic engineering approaches to develop new model systems.

·    Tissue and Cell Imaging Core (Christopher Weber, M.D., Ph.D., Vytas Bindokas, Ph.D.):  Access to surgical pathology specimens and archival tissues related to infectious, neoplastic and inflammatory bowel diseases.  Also offering imaging capabilities for tissue and cell analysis.

·  Computational Analysis and Modeling Resource (CAMR)  (Gary An, M.D., Ph.D., Folker Meyer, Ph.D., Yong Huang, M.D.):  Bioinformatics, biostatistics, high-throughput microbial analysis and modeling & simulation to aid in the design, execution and interpretation of research projects.

 

Please see our website www.uchicagoddrcc.org for further details of our Research Cores and examples of recently funded P&F projects.

 

Period and Amount of Funding:  Funds for Pilot & Feasibility projects are available for an initial period of one year beginning December 1, 2018 and range between $25,000-37,500 in direct costs depending upon number of awardees. Successful candidates will be required to report their progress 6 months into the fiscal year for continuation of funding. Outcome of progress during the first year will determine if applicants will be invited to reapply for a second year of funding.  Funds may be requested for personnel (with the exception of PI salary), supplies, services and other costs (not equipment or travel). A detailed budget with justification is essential for the application. 

 

Applications:  Interested applicants must contact Drs. Eugene B. Chang, Bana Jabri, or Cathy Nagler, prior to submitting a full application, ideally by July 27, 2018.   

 

For questions regarding the application please contact:

Joeli Brinkman jbrinkman@uchicago.edu    (2-5639) (DDRCC Program Manager)

Eugene Chang, M.D. echang@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu (2-6458)

Bana Jabri, M.D., Ph.D. bjabri@bsd.uchicago.edu (4-8670) or

Cathy Nagler, Ph.D. cnagler@bsd.uchicago.edu (2-6317) [Director of P&F Programs]