Budget: $200,000/3 years; no IDCs; up to 10% of grant award may be used for equipment purchase
Submission: By invitation from the Foundation only; 1 application from WCM; does not involve Ithaca
Research emphasis areas:
- Improving human brain and brain-immune functioning to promote health, and prevent and treat disease;
- Pilot-testing of promising, high-risk, and innovative ideas with a direct clinical application;
- Understanding normal brain functioning, how it is altered by disease/injury, and how it recovers/repairs;
- Assessing and improving diagnostic and therapeutic approaches;
- Refining and advancing imaging technologies to address specific clinical questions;
- Understanding developmental processes of disease, surrogate measures of early disease existence, and measures of disease progression;
- Research on imaging innovations that help reveal how the human brain functions normally, how disorders and injuries alter these functions, and how various therapies affect these conditions.
- Animal model studies will be considered only if they relate directly to humans but cannot yet feasibly be undertaken in humans and are anticipated to be translated into human research following the 3-year grant period.
- The following areas will not be considered: 1) ideas without preliminary data; 2) instrument development with-out initial evidence for feasibility and clinical applicability.
Review considerations:
- All proposals that seek to develop new imaging techniques or assays, or modify existing ones to address clinical questions must provide preliminary evidence of feasibility and evidence of the investigator’s experience in using the technology. Proposals without such preliminary evidence will not be considered.
- Investigators proposing patient-oriented studies should provide preliminary evidence that the required number of participants—patients and controls—are available at involved research institution(s).
- For all proposals that do not propose to undertake studies in humans or human tissue, the direct relevance to human health and functioning needs to be explicitly stated. These proposed studies will only be considered if they are designed to:
- pose a specific question concerning the disease process that is directly related to known aspects of brain pathology seen in the human;
- alter a factor in a healthy animal for which there is some evidence of the factor’s involvement in a human disease process (as opposed to altering a factor in a healthy animal to see if the result resembles a human brain disease); and
- be translated into studies in the human following the three-year grant period;
- The proposal, if successful, should generate pilot data for larger-scale support from other funders.
Current Awardees:
| https://www.dana.org/funding-and-grants/research-grants/ |
Previous Awardees: http://www.dana.org/grants/brain-and-immuno-imaging
Eligibility
- Faculty researchers at the assistant professor level, or in the first few years of their associate professor appointments
- The applicant may use either or both physiological/structural or cellular/molecular imaging
- Investigators must not have more than one independent research grant (R01 or equivalent)
- Applications from junior investigators that are an extension of the work of a senior mentor, particularly if from the same institution, are discouraged.
Application Requirements
Weill Cornell Medicine is limited to submitting one nominee. Due to this limitation an internal selection process will be coordinated. Chairpersons interested in nominating a candidate should submit the following information:
- Nomination letter from the Department Chairperson detailing why the candidate should be considered (1-2 pages)
- Research proposal (2 pages, excluding references)
This should include the following five sections:
- Section I: A clearly and succinctly stated hypothesis.
- Section II: The aims of the proposed research project. What disease(s), disorder(s) or injuries would be better understood, diagnosed, or treated? Or, what normal brain function or brain-immune interaction would be better understood? Or, what imaging technology would be refined and for what specific purposes? Such technology development or modification aims need to be accompanied by initial evidence of the project’s feasibility.
- Section III: The research significance and potential clinical application(s) of the research.
- Section IV: The methods. Please clearly describe the research design and specify tests and analyses proposed to develop the pilot data. If enrollment of human participants is planned, please provide preliminary evidence that the number required can be recruited from the participating institution(s).
- Section V: The qualifications of the primary investigator(s) for undertaking the proposed research. What facilities and resources at the applicant institution(s) would be used in the research? Please provide evidence that required technologies would be available for this project.
3. A list of all active grants and pending proposals by the applicant.
4. Candidate’s curriculum vitae
Instructions for Electronic Submission:
Submit the above items, in the order listed, as one PDF document using the naming convention PI last name.First initial_DANA2018.pdf (see example below).
Example: Smith.J_DANA2018
Investigators must not independently contact the funding agency outside of the limited submission process. Failure to adhere to this policy may jeopardize Weill Cornell’s privilege of participating in subsequent funding cycles. Interested Investigators must submit a pre-proposal for internal review. The Medical College will not support applications that circumvent this process
Past Recipients
- Neuroscience
- Faculty
- Junior Faculty