Population and Laboratory Based Sciences

Institutional Program Unifying Population and Laboratory Based Sciences

Program Background
Program
Guidelines
Selection
Terms

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Institutional Program Unifying Population and Laboratory Based Sciences is a new institutional training award created to bridge the gap between the population and computational sciences and the laboratory based biological sciences. The award will stimulate formation of new connections between existing concentrations of research strength in population approaches to human health and in bench based biological sciences. The goal is to establish training programs that partner researchers working in schools of medicine and schools (or academic divisions) of public health. With those required institutional partners in place, programs have the freedom to involve a diverse range of other potential partners including those working in international settings, industrial settings, national laboratories, laboratories of federal agencies, quantitative population research groups outside of the life sciences (examples include but are not limited to econometrics, demographics, applied mathematics, anthropology, and other fields not typically represented by departments within medical centers.) The programs supported by these awards will develop young researchers who will be equally at home with the ideas, approaches, and insights generated at the molecular scale and at the population scale. Such programs may be free-standing graduate programs or newly defined tracks within existing programs. Trainees of such programs may bring new approaches to combining genomics with phenomics, addressing questions of population genetics, understanding molecular and environmental epidemiology, and a range of other issues important to understanding human health and its disruptors.

These institutional training awards provide $500,000 a year for five years. We anticipate that up to four awards will be made in the program’s first round. This program will be offered again in 2009.

Understanding human health will be a focal priority for the programs that are funded. There is ample room for building on institutional strengths to achieve this focus, for example: institutional interests in chronic diseases, autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, genetic diseases, toxicology and environmental exposures, reproductive health, and other areas where questions relating to human health are ripe for exploration at both the population and molecular scales. Likewise, institutional strengths in applied mathematics and modeling, statistics, genomics, bioinformatics and other informatics and data-driven sciences including geography and demographics, and phenomic approaches could provide excellent foundations for programs which encourage such work, as would strengths in population biology; epidemiology; human or disease ecology, anthropology, econometrics, and other population-focused quantitative fields.

Supported programs will train graduate students to the Ph.D. level, but programs may additionally propose giving training access to postdoctoral fellows, medical students, medical residents, masters students, undergraduates, or other kinds of trainees. Some examples of problems where such an approach would be beneficial include but are not limited to

• multifactorial disease processes
• evolution of and relationships between host, pathogen, vector, and reservoirs
• biomarker identification and validation
• effects of environmental exposure to toxins, allergens, and immunogens

The deadline for electronic receipt of letters of intent is March 3, 2008. The deadline for electronic receipt of full applications (by invitation only) is May 15, 2008. Award recipients will be notified and announced in November 2008, and grants will begin in February 2009.

• Degree-granting institutions in the U.S. or Canada may submit applications.
• Proposals must be driven by core components within medical and public health schools, but beyond those required components, departments or centers located within non-medical parts of a university, existing inter-institutional collaboratives, research museums, free-standing research institutes, and other non-profit institutions that provide advanced-level training are all acceptable as potential additional partners. Dental, osteopathic, and veterinary medical schools are appropriate applicants.
• Comparative medicine and animal science departments are advised to discuss their planned proposal with the program officer to ensure that their proposal will be human-focused enough to be competitive.
• Proposals that cross institutional boundaries are encouraged.
• Research groups working at national laboratories and within the federal government are allowable as partners, but funding to students doing research within these institutions must be channeled through an appropriate degree-granting institution.
• For-profit companies may not participate in the application, but could be valuable partners in such training programs. Proposals that may offer students access to research opportunities involving work in or data from the for-profit sector are welcome.

Selection will be based on:

The quality, innovation, and logic of the proposed training program and its relevance to the goals outlined in this request for proposals; the capacity of the proposed program to bring established investigators with disparate research approaches together in a lasting and meaningful way so that they can provide stable training environments; the feasibility of plans for interactions between and among students and faculty; the program’s plan for recruiting excellent students; the track records of the participating groups for producing well trained graduates in a timely manner; and the quality of the proposing group’s plans for implementing and evaluating the program and for maintaining the program beyond the term of this award.

Terms

Awards are made to institutions. The institutions are responsible for disbursing the funds and for maintaining adequate supporting records and receipts of expenditures. BWF does not support indirect costs. Salaries of support personnel and materials appropriate to administering the program should be included as direct costs.

Institutions must provide BWF with an annual progress report detailing scientific or organizational progress and mentoring activities. Institutions must provide an annual financial report. Both reports must be submitted (on forms that are on BWF's website at www.bwfund.org) within 30 days of the end of each award year. Continued funding will depend on the favorable review of these reports by BWF and its program advisory committee.

During the award period, unused research funds may be carried over to the succeeding year. Any unused funds (greater than $500) held by institutions when awards expire or are terminated must be returned to BWF, unless the Fund has granted prior permission to retain the funds. Institutions may receive a no-cost extension of up to 24 months; requests explaining why an extension is needed must be submitted in writing at least three months prior to the end of the award.

Scientific publications or presentations that result from these awards must acknowledge the institution's receipt of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Population and Laboratory Based Sciences Award. Copies of journal articles and other publications should be sent to BWF along with the annual progress report.

BWF will not retain any rights to published results or patents that result from the research. Awarded programs should follow their institutions’ patent, copyright, and intellectual property policies regarding discoveries that result from research conducted under these awards.

BWF expects the appropriate federal, state, and local guidelines with regard to scientific misconduct are in place and enforced at all institutions. Institutions are expected to adhere to all federal, state, and local regulations regarding the participation of human subjects, and the use of animals, radioactive or hazardous materials, and recombinant DNA in their research projects.

Scientific findings should be shared in a timely manner via the standard means of scientific communication, including publications and/or presentations in scientific forums.