Sexually Transmitted Diseases Grants

Call for Proposals: Round 6 of Grand Challenges Explorations Grants

Applications for Round 6 will be accepted until November 2, 2010 at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time.

Topics are presented for each Grand Challenges Explorations round.

The topics for Round 6 are:

* Design New Approaches to Cure HIV Infection;
* Create the Next Generation of Sanitation Technologies;
* The Poliovirus Endgame: Create Ways to Accelerate, Sustain and Monitor Eradication;
* Create Low-Cost Cell Phone-Based Applications for Priority Health Conditions;
* Create New Technologies to Improve the Health of Mothers and Newborns.

Initial grants will be US $100,000 each, and projects showing promise will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of up to US $1 million.

The Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative is jointly administered by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, and the Wellcome Trust.

* For general inquires - including media inquiries - about Grand Challenges in Global Health, please contact us at

grandchallenges@gatesfoundation.org
Phone: 206.709.3400

Request For Proposals: Targeted Biomedical Research Exploring the Mechanisms for HIV Persistence and the Potential for HIV Eradication

Deadline: September 16, 2010

Available Support

amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, is pleased to announce the availability of targeted support for biomedical research projects relevant to exploring the mechanisms for HIV persistence and the potential for HIV eradication.

Funding will be available for:

Research Grants—$100,000 for direct costs plus up to 20 percent for indirect costs. The performance period for grants awarded under this RFP will be for one year starting March 1, 2011.

Fellowships—Each fellowship is funded for a total of up to $125,000: A maximum of $110,000 is allowed for project-specific direct costs ($45,000 per year for salary and fringe benefits and $20,000 over two years for laboratory supplies). It is expected that fellows will devote a minimum of 85 percent time and effort to the approved fellowship project. An additional $3,636 is provided to support attendance at amfAR-designated consultations for a direct cost maximum of $113,636. Institutional indirect costs may not exceed 10 percent of direct costs. The performance period for fellowships awarded under this RFP will be for two years starting March 1, 2011.

amfAR's research program is driven by the Foundation's mission to end the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research. amfAR plays a uniquely important role in AIDS research, identifying critical gaps in our knowledge of HIV and AIDS, and supporting groundbreaking studies that often lack the preliminary data required by more traditional funders. The Foundation's research program focuses on efforts to prevent HIV infection among vulnerable populations and to improve treatment, with the ultimate goal of eradicating the virus in people living with HIV infection.

This RFP solicits proposals relevant to exploring the mechanisms for HIV persistence and the potential for HIV eradication. Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has significantly impacted the health of individuals infected with HIV-1. However, if therapy is interrupted, there is a rapid resumption of viral replication. Understanding the mechanisms by which the virus is able to persist in the face of therapy is necessary in order to identify strategies that may interrupt viral persistence and ultimately lead to viral eradication. amfAR wishes to support basic, clinical, and especially translational research exploring the mechanisms whereby HIV infection persists; the chronic nature of viral reservoirs and latency; and barriers to the eradication of HIV, with the potential goal of ultimately eliminating HIV infection.

Specific areas of interest include:

* Novel strategies/approaches for preventing the establishment of, or eliminating, latent HIV virus. Use of known activators will not be considered responsive to the RFP.
* Understanding and characterizing cellular and tissue locations of reservoirs and their relative importance in maintaining infection in face of ART and immune system activity
* Understanding the extent to which persistence is due to true latency versus low level replication. How does effect of ART differ in each case? If true latency, does this mean ART intensification will ultimately not lead to eradication? If low level replication, does this mean ART could ultimately eradicate the virus?
* Is there a threshold viral load below which infection will not be re-seeded?
* Studies in elite controllers and/or acute infection cohorts that may help define new mechanisms of persistence that are not HLA-driven
* Does persistent immune activation point to a need for long-term immune reconstitution strategies? Are there benefits to immune suppressive therapy?
* Improved assays to quantify integrated versus unintegrated DNA. Do these differ between tissues, in treated versus untreated patients, or in progressors versus controllers?
* Improved assays to more efficiently and inexpensively measure extremely low viral load (e.g., to 0.01 copies/ml)
* Deep sequencing approaches to compare viruses in different tissue compartments with those in plasma following treatment interruption, with a view to identifying sources of viral rebound
* What are the consequences of chronic immune activation, in the presence or absence of ART, on tissues such as the gut, and can the damage be reversed if immune activation is controlled?

Types of Funding and Qualifications:

Research Grants—Principal investigators for research grants must be faculty-level researchers affiliated with a nonprofit institution. Research grants are given to nonprofit institutions worldwide to support investigator-led projects approved by the Foundation. In general, funds are applied to direct costs of salaries and fringe benefits for professional and technical personnel, laboratory supplies and equipment, travel, and the publication of findings. Research grants are awarded for one year without assurance of continued funding.

Fellowships—An amfAR fellowship is a grant that encourages the postdoctoral (M.D., Ph.D., or equivalent) investigator with limited experience in the field to advance a career in HIV/AIDS research. Fellowship grants are applied to direct costs incurred in the course of an amfAR-approved research project. Allowed costs are limited to laboratory supplies, the fellow’s salary and fringe benefits, and costs incurred by participation in amfAR-designated consultations. Fellowships are awarded for two years and may not be renewed for additional funding. amfAR fellows and mentors must be affiliated with the same nonprofit institution. The applicant’s interest in a career in HIV/AIDS will be demonstrated by previous relevant work at the postdoctoral fellow or instructor level and will be carefully evaluated. The fellowship applicant must be mentored by an experienced investigator who: (a) is qualified to oversee the proposed research; (b) has successfully supervised postdoctoral fellows; and (c) is at the associate professor level or higher.

Submission Requirements and Deadlines

Letter of intent (LOI) forms and instructions may be obtained by sending an email to grants@amfar.org.

Please include the following in the body of the e-mail:

* applicant’s name
* mentor’s name (fellowship grants only)
* institution
* proposed project title

amfAR Grants
120 Wall Street, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10005-3908, USA

An e-mailed (electronic) copy and signed hard copy of the LOI are required of all applicants.

Submission of an LOI is not a guarantee of eligibility to submit a full application. The pre-application process is highly competitive. Only a limited number of investigators submitting an LOI will be invited to submit a full application.

American Society for Microbiology/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Program in Infectious Disease and Public Health Microbiology

The program is sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The goal of ASM/CDC Fellowship is to support the development of new approaches, methodologies and knowledge in infectious disease prevention and control in areas within the public health mission of the CDC. The fellowship allows one to perform research in residence headquartered at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) location. Eligible fields of study include:

* Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases
* Viral and Rickettsial Infections
* Nosocomial Infections
* HIV/AIDS
* Vector-borne Infectious Diseases
* Parasitic Diseases

Funding
The Fellowship provides an annual stipend (up to $45,243), health benefits (up to $3000 annually) for a maximum of 2 years, relocation benefits (up to $500), and (up to $2000 annually) for professional development for a maximum of 2 years.

Eligibility
The program is intended for individuals who either earned their doctorate degree or completed a primary residency within three years of their proposed start date. Applicants may not have a faculty position or be enrolled in a graduate degree program during the fellowship. Considerations will be given to individuals with more experience if there are compelling reasons. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, creed, color, age, sex, or national origin.

Criteria for Selection
Applications are reviewed for (i) scientific merit and training potential of the research proposal, (ii) training resources and environment from the identified preceptor, and (iii) congruence with the Centers for Diseases public health mission.

Deadline: January 15th

Application
The online application is currently available.

Contact
ASM/CDC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program
Education Department
American Society for Microbiology
1752 N Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036

(202) 942-9295
E-mail: fellowships@asmusa.org

American Medical Association Seed Grant Research Program

An increasing number of young physician scientists are experiencing difficulty finding the resources and support to do research. Consequently, fewer physicians are choosing careers in research which is a terrible loss to medicine.

To address this trend, the AMA Foundation established the Seed Grant Research Program in 2000 to encourage medical students, physician residents and fellows to enter the research field. The program provides $2,500 grants to help them conduct small basic science, applied, or clinical research projects. These funds will round out new project budgets, rather than sustain current initiatives.

Grant amounts and timeline

One-year grants of up to $2,500/each are awarded. Grants will support research in Cardiovascular/Pulmonary Diseases, HIV/AIDS, Leukemia, and Neoplastic Diseases. The application deadline will be Dec. 6, 2010 and recipients will be announced in March 2011. The grant period and project duration is up to one year from the date of the grant check.

American Medical Association
515 N. State Street
Chicago, IL 60654
(800) 621-8335

Conference Student Scholarships: HIV Evolution, Genomics, and Pathogenesis

Scholarship Deadline: November 22, 2010 (Midnight US Mountain Standard Time)

Elucidating the molecular mechanisms of HIV pathogenesis relies on understanding the complex interplay between the virus and its host. Increasingly, the field is relying on the power of comparative studies of similar viruses in other species, and on whole genome analyses to elucidate which pathways are critical. The use of evolutionary analyses of both host and virus is also providing novel insights into viral transmission and innate immune responses. This Keystone Symposia meeting will use diverse disciplines to promote further insights into the dynamic interplay between the virus and the host in areas of pathogenesis, mucosal biology, the roles of viral and host genes, and viral latency. Understanding these issues is critical for the design and development of an effective vaccine and the next generation of antiviral agents.

Keystone Symposia is offering scholarships to students and post-docs this conference season. These scholarships, of up to $1000 each, are to be used to help defray the expenses associated with conference attendance, including air (on a U.S. air carrier), ground transportation and lodging costs. Receipts will be required to receive reimbursement.

Abstracts submitted for poster presentation will be used as the basis for awarding the scholarships. Conference organizers will select the scholarship recipients based on the quality of science of the abstract and the relevance of the abstract to the conference topic. Only one application per abstract is accepted.

Keystone Symposia
221 Summit Place #272
PO Box 1630
Silverthorne, CO 80498
www.keystonesymposia.org

Financial Assistance / Student Scholarships
Phone: +1 (800) 253-0685 or
Ksenia Shambarger - +1 (970) 262-1230 extension 140
Fax: +1 (970) 262-0311

Conference Student Scholarships: Protection from HIV: Targeted Intervention Strategies

Scholarship Deadline: November 22, 2010 (Midnight US Mountain Standard Time)

Biological efforts to prevent HIV infection center on four independent approaches: inducing adaptive immune responses through vaccination, augmenting innate responses, using peri-exposure prophylactic drug therapy, and developing microbicides and/or recombinant antiviral microbial products. While all four of these approaches have promise, they still require significant optimization and further clinical trials. Indeed, successful prevention of HIV infection will likely require a combination of these approaches. Such development efforts require a better understanding of viral and immunological events at the site of transmission. This Keystone Symposia meeting will have a focus on mucosal immunology as well as the interplay between the virus and innate and adaptive immune responses, particularly during the acute phase of the infection. Leading experts in the fields will discuss recent scientific advances in these varied approaches to preventing infection and present data from recent clinical trials testing their efficacy.

Keystone Symposia is offering scholarships to students and post-docs this conference season. These scholarships, of up to $1000 each, are to be used to help defray the expenses associated with conference attendance, including air (on a U.S. air carrier), ground transportation and lodging costs. Receipts will be required to receive reimbursement.

Abstracts submitted for poster presentation will be used as the basis for awarding the scholarships. Conference organizers will select the scholarship recipients based on the quality of science of the abstract and the relevance of the abstract to the conference topic. Only one application per abstract is accepted.

Keystone Symposia
221 Summit Place #272
PO Box 1630
Silverthorne, CO 80498
www.keystonesymposia.org

Financial Assistance / Student Scholarships
Phone: +1 (800) 253-0685 or
Ksenia Shambarger - +1 (970) 262-1230 extension 140
Fax: +1 (970) 262-0311