October 28, 2009

Dear Colleague:

The University of Pittsburgh’s Office of Research, Health Sciences (OORHS) invites applications for grant support from the Competitive Medical Research Fund (CMRF).  This announcement is for Fiscal Year 2011 funding, and the deadline for receipt of applications is January 11, 2010.

The UPMC Health System established the CMRF in 1985 with the intent of providing modest research support across the broad range of the biomedical sciences. Please refer to the revised CMRF policies (available at http://www.oorhs.pitt.edu/funding/CMRF.aspx) for further information about the goals of the CMRF program. There are three categories of application for CMRF funding: New Investigator, Bridge Support, and Collaborative Research. This solicitation is requesting applications in all three categories:

New Investigator application

• The intent of new investigator awards is to provide funds for relatively junior, independent scientists to develop the preliminary data and refinement of procedures and hypotheses that would enable submission of highly competitive applications to national funding sources.
• Faculty members at the level of assistant /research assistant professor are eligible.  In rare circumstances, applications from associate professors will be considered if the applicant can demonstrate that he or she has only recently begun independent research activities.
• Maximum funding is $25,000 that can be expended over a period of up to 24 months.

Bridge Funding application

• The intent of bridge funding is to provide support for investigators who have experienced lapses in funding; i.e., to provide funds to investigators who have applied for renewals of previously awarded grants, but whose renewal grant applications, while receiving highly favorable reviews, were not funded. These CMRF funds are intended to allow the concerns expressed through peer review to be addressed.
• A faculty member who has received support for a project from the Health Sciences Bridge Funding program is not eligible for CMRF Bridge Funding for that project.
• Faculty members at the levels of assistant/research assistant professor, associate/research associate professor, and professor/research professor are eligible.
• Maximum funding is $25,000 that can be expended over a period of up to 12 months.
• The application must include (i) The summary statement/review/critique from the most recent submission of the application to an extramural funding source, i.e., the review of the renewal/continuation application that was not funded and for which interim/bridge funding is being requested; (ii) A two-page response by the investigator to the key points of the review including a statement as to how bridge support will help the investigator address these concerns.

Collaborative Research application

• The intent of collaborative research awards is to fund interdisciplinary, translational research that represents a true collaboration between a clinical scientist and a basic research scientist.  Faculty members at the levels of assistant/research assistant professor, associate/research associate professor, and professor/research professor are eligible. Senior Research Scientist staff members partnering with a clinical scientist are eligible for the CMRF Collaborative Research award only.
• Maximum funding is $25,000 that can be expended over a period of up to 24 months.
• A principal investigator and a co-principal investigator are required for these applications.  One of the investigators (PI or co-PI) must be a basic scientist and one must be a clinical scientist.
• The application must demonstrate how the combined efforts in basic and clinical research will result in a collaborative, multi-disciplinary project that will facilitate the translation of a research project from the laboratory to the clinic.  This translation need not necessarily be an immediate consequence of the research performed with CMRF support; if this translation will not be imminent, one goal of the research should be to identify the additional gaps of knowledge that must be closed before such a transition could be made.
• Research teams for which the principal investigator and the co-investigator have significant other funding must include specific statements in the application to address why CMRF support is needed to perform the proposed research.  Preferential consideration will be given to those applications for which the investigators are not funded for closely related activities.

CMRF grants are awarded on a competitive basis. A review committee, composed of scientists from within the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC, and the local Veterans Administration medical science community, has responsibility for reviewing each application, for providing written critiques of each application, and for making recommendations for awards to OORHS and to the UPMC Board of Directors. Each application is reviewed by at least two members of the review committee who have relevant expertise, and each application is discussed by the entire committee during the review process.

Applications received in response to this solicitation will be reviewed in time for funding in July 2010. Please note that all applications must be submitted electronically to sac32@pitt.edu; see the CMRF policies, revised October 2009, for details of the application submission process. No paper copies will be accepted. The application receipt deadline is 11:59 pm, Monday, January 11, 2010. Applications must be complete when submitted and no exceptions will be made to the receipt deadline.

If you or any of your colleagues are interested in applying for research funds from the CMRF, the application and instructions and the CMRF policies are available from the web site of the Office of Research, Health Sciences. If you have questions relating to the CMRF, please contact Ms. Selena A. Crawford, CMRF Coordinator, in the Office of Research, Health Sciences (telephone: 412-648-2233;E-mail: sac32@pitt.edu.

We look forward to your participation in this rewarding program.

Sincerely,

Michelle S. Broido, PhD
Associate Vice Chancellor for Biomedical Research
   and Director, Office of Research, Health Sciences
Co-Director, Clinical and Translational Science Institute

The following CMRF documents are available in a Adobe Acrobat PDF Form and fillable Microsoft Word format.