Toxicology Grants

Sigma Delta Epsilon Graduate Women in Science Grants and Fellowships

The Guidelines for the SDE/GWIS Fellowships (SDE, Eloise Gerry, Vessa Notchev, and Nell I. Mondy Fellowships) are listed below.  It is unnecessary for applicants to designate specific Fellowships on the application form. The Fellowships committee will match the overall top-scoring applicants to the appropriate Fellowship awards based on scientific merit, fields of study and requested funding amounts. All Fellowships committee decisions are final. Please note that the application deadline is January 15 of each year, and awards will be announced on or before July 1 of the following year. Please direct any questions to the Fellowships Coordinator, Jennifer Ingram, fellowshipsquestions@gwis.org or (919) 668-1439.

To be eligible, the applicant must be enrolled as a graduate student, or engaged in post-doctoral or early-stage junior faculty academic research, and demonstrate financial need for continuation or completion of their research. Membership in SDE/GWIS is not required for application for the GWIS Fellowships.

The major component of the research can be either applied or basic. Exact Fellowships amounts will be determined by the SDE/GWIS Fellowships Committee and will range from $5000 to $10,000. All awards will be available for the academic year and will be announced on or before July 1 of each year. Endowment funds, mostly generated from bequests, provide the annual income that supports scientific research done by SDE/GWIS Award winners. For the 2006-2007 funding cycle we awarded a total of $31,000 in the following manner:

SDE Fellowships: Three awards for a total of $10,489

Eloise Gerry Fellowships: Four awards for a total of $14,494

Vessa Notchev Fellowships: Four awards for a total of $14,494

Nell I. Mondy Fellowship: One Award of $3,000

Guidelines
application • questions? (fellowshipsquestions@gwis.org)

Purposes
1. To increase knowledge in the fundamental sciences.
2. To encourage research careers in the sciences by women.

Designation of the Awards

1) The Fellowships are to be known as the Sigma Delta Epsilon (SDE), Eloise Gerry, Vessa Notchev and Nell I. Mondy Fellowships. The highest scoring SDE Fellowships designee shall be known as the Adele Lewis Grant/SDE Fellowships winner and the second-best scoring designee shall be known as the Hartley/SDE Fellowships winner. All other winners shall be known as fellowship winners in accordance with the overall fund supporting the award.

2) Awards will be announced on or before July 1 of each year.

Qualifications of Candidate

1) Awards will be made to women holding a degree from a recognized institution of higher learning, of outstanding ability and promise in research, who are performing research at any institution in the U.S. or abroad. Postdoctoral fellows can expect to be evaluated more rigorously than student applicants.

2) Awards will be made irrespective of race, religion, nationality, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or age. Membership in SDE/GWIS is not required for application for the GWIS Fellowships.

3) Awards will be made irrespective of race, religion, nationality, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or age.

4) Awards will be made as follows:
• For the SDE, Eloise Gerry, and Vessa Notchev Fellowships, awards are for research in all the natural sciences, including: physical, environmental, mathematical, computer, life sciences, anthropology, psychology and statistics.
• For the Nell I. Mondy Fellowships, awards are for research in the same areas as for the other Fellowships, with preference given to applications in the areas of food science, nutrition, and toxicology. The winner of the Nell I. Mondy Fellowship must be a member of SDE/GWIS.

Terms of the Award

1) The funds available in any one year shall be the income from and contributions to the endowment accounts. The amount thus varies from year to year. The Fellowships Committee reserves the right to make no awards if no satisfactory applicants present themselves.

2) The period of the award shall be one academic year (July 1st to June 30th). Recipients are not eligible for subsequent awards from the same fund, though they may apply for a different award.

3) The recipient of an award will submit an abstract of 100 words or less along with a recent wallet-sized black-and-white photo of themselves or digital .jpg file to the SDE/GWIS Bulletin Editor as soon as the awards are announced. This will be used for publication purposes in the national SDE/GWIS annual Bulletin.

4) The recipient of an award will be expected to follow the main outline of the original proposal. If a major deviation from it is essential, approval must be obtained from the Fellowships Committee.

5) Fellowships funds may be used for such things as expendable supplies, small equipment to be used by the recipient (not for general use), publication of research findings, travel and subsistence while performing field studies, or travel to another laboratory for collaborative research. These costs must be clearly justified in the proposal and integral to the research design. Funds cannot be used for the following: tuition, child care, travel to professional meetings or to begin a new appointment, administrative overhead or indirect costs, personal computers, living allowances, or equipment of general use. A maximum of $10,000 may be requested.

6) If for any reason the recipient is unable to initiate or complete the project, unexpended funds shall be returned to SDE/GWIS.

7) Acknowledgment of support from an award is requested in pertinent publications, oral presentations, and on the awardees’ curriculum vitae.

8) If human or animal subjects are used, an in-house animal subjects committee must evaluate the work, and an approval from the committee must be included in the application. If approval is pending at the time of application, documentation of approval must be provided to the Fellowships Committee before an award will be made.

9) Research involving field collections must show evidence of the proper collecting permits. If approval is pending at the time of application, documentation of approval must be provided to the Fellowships Committee before an award will be made.

10) Research involving cooperation with scientists from other sites/laboratories must include evidence of this collaboration (i.e., a letter from the host scientist).

11) If the research extends beyond one year, submission of an annual progress report acceptable to the Fellowships Committee is required.

12) Membership in SDE/GWIS is not required for Fellowships applications. See (link) for more information on SDE/GWIS membership.

13) An application processing fee of US $20 is required at the time of application. The application fee is required to offset costs associated with application review.

14) At the end of the fellowship, a one-page progress report must be sent to SDE/GWIS Past-President Paddy Wiesenfeld. This progress report must be signed by the Fellowships winner’s supervisor, and Dr. Wiesenfeld must receive it by May 15. Any abstracts or reprints resulting from the proposed work must accompany the progress report. Please send progress reports to progressreports@gwis.org.

Application Instructions

The entire application must be provided electronically as a SINGLE, COMPLETE PDF by 4pm applicant’s time on January 15. The reviewing committee reserves the right to reject any application not electronically submitted by the deadline, any application that does not meet requirements, or is incomplete. Committee decisions are final. The awards will be announced on or before July 1.

Note: You may only apply for one award in a given year.

SDE/GWIS Fellowships Coordinator:
Dr. Jennifer Ingram
Dept. of Medicine
Duke University
Box 2641
275 MSRB, Research Drive
Durham, NC 27710
(919) 668-1439
email: fellowshipsquestions@gwis.org

Institutional Program Unifying Population and Laboratory Based Sciences

Application deadlines for 2010 awards:

Letter of Intent: March 2, 2009 by 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Full Application (by invitation only): May 15, 2009 by 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time
By electronic application only.

Five-year institutional training awards provide $500,000 a year to bridge the gap between the population and computational sciences and the laboratory-based biological sciences. The award will support the training of researchers between existing concentrations of research strength in population approaches to human health and in basic biological sciences. The goal is to establish training programs by partnering researchers working in schools of medicine and schools (or academic divisions) of public health.

Eligibility
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

Proposals

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.

Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Post Office Box 13901
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3901

Telephone: (919) 991-5100
Fax: (919) 991-5160

Society of Toxicology Awards

In recognition of distinguished toxicologists and students, SOT presents several prestigious awards each year. In addition to receiving the specific award, recipients are honored at a special Awards Ceremony at the SOT Annual Meeting and their names are listed in SOT publications.

The deadline for most SOT 2009 Award nominations is October 9, 2008.

SOT Headquarters Office
1821 Michael Faraday Drive
Suite 300
Reston, Virginia 20190
Phone: (703) 438-3115
Fax: (703) 438-3113
Email: sothq@toxicology.org

The JDRF/ITN Partnership in Immune Tolerance Program will encourage and support early stage clinical development of tolerogenic protocols in Type 1 diabetes. The initiative aims to facilitate the development of novel tolerance agents in type 1 diabetes through targeted funding available through a fast-turnaround, streamlined application process administered by the ITN, with JDRF participation.

In particular, this initiative aims to foster the development of partnerships between academia and industry in order to bridge early clinical studies of therapies that have strong preclinical evidence for efficacy by supporting pre-clinical toxicology studies, phase 1 safety trials and small human efficacy trials that will provide proof-of-principle in well controlled, safe settings.

Examples of research that will be considered for support under this program:

* therapeutic strategies aimed at promoting immune tolerance in new/early onset type 1 diabetes
* therapeutic strategies aimed at promoting immune tolerance in established type 1 diabetes
* interventions aimed at restoring/reconstituting beta cell function without long term immunosuppression

Types of studies:

* drug development
* pre-clinical toxicology studies
* phase I safety studies in humans

Research outside the scope of this initiative:

* any animal studies not directly related to toxicology or pharmacodynamics in preparation of human clinical studies
* studies in Type 2 diabetes or gestational diabetes are not eligible for funding.
* type 1 diabetes prevention studies will not be considered – these should be submitted to the ITN or TrialNet as regular Concept Proposals

1. Mission
The JDRF/ITN Partnership in Immune Tolerance Program will encourage and support early stage clinical
development of tolerogenic protocols in Type 1 diabetes. The initiative aims to facilitate the development
of novel tolerance agents in type 1 diabetes through targeted funding available through a fast-turnaround,
streamlined application process administered by the ITN, with JDRF participation.
In particular, this initiative aims to foster the development of partnerships between academia and industry
in order to bridge early clinical studies of therapies that have strong preclinical evidence for efficacy by
supporting pre-clinical toxicology studies, phase 1 safety trials and small efficacy trials that will provide
proof-of-principle in well controlled, safe settings. It is the intent that successful projects emerging from
this initiative would then qualify for broader clinical support via the ITN’s existing support programs or
other funding sources.
Proposals for support from the JDRF/ITN Partnership in Immune Tolerance Program are considered via
one of two streams:
Stream 1: Investigator-initiated proposals are accepted via the ITN website utilizing ITN’s online
Concept Proposal submission system. There are no formal submission deadlines for the initiative
– proposals are accepted at all times throughout the year.
Stream 2: Clinical Concept Proposals and/or Full Applications in the area of type 1 diabetes
reviewed by the ITN that are deemed by the ITN review panel to be scientifically valid and
important, but without sufficient toxicology data to warrant full ITN clinical funding may be
considered as candidates for funding from the JDRF/ITN Partnership initiative. In such cases, the
ITN may provide a commitment in principle to funding phase II clinical studies should results from
the JDRF/ITN initiative be positive.

2. Scope
Total amount of funding available for this initiative is $3-5 million per year. The size and duration of
individual awards will vary depending upon the proposed research and total remaining funds available.
Individual project funds will be limited to 10% indirect cost recover rate and can be used for drug
development, pre-clinical/toxicology and Phase I safety. All projects funded by this initiative must receive
formal approval by appropriate regulatory and safety groups.
Basic Criteria
In general, proposals accepted for review under this initiative must meet the following general criteria:
- projects must exhibit the potential for direct clinical benefit in the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
- there must be appreciable scientific evidence from basic research and small/large animal studies
that the proposed intervention has the potential to induce tolerance to the autoimmune response
that causes type 1 diabetes.
- proposals aimed at promoting tolerance to islet transplants in type 1 diabetes will be considered
providing that the proposed interventions have conceptual underpinnings demonstrating benefits
specific to the islet transplantation setting where both auto and alloimmune responses must be
controlled.
- support is available to principal investigators or teams of investigators holding positions in
academia, industry, government or nonprofit research institutions.
Research that will be considered:
- therapeutic strategies aimed at promoting immune tolerance in new/early onset type 1 diabetes
- therapeutic strategies aimed at promoting immune tolerance in established type 1 diabetes
- interventions aimed at restoring/reconstituting beta cell function without long term
immunosuppression
- Therapeutics based on:
o monoclonal antibodies
o small molecule drugs
o cell-based therapies
o RNA/DNA-based therapies
o other
- Types of studies:
o drug development
o pre-clinical toxicology studies
o phase I safety studies in humans
Research outside the scope of this initiative:
- any animal studies not directly related to toxicology or pharmacodynamics in preparation of
human clinical studies
- studies in Type 2 diabetes or gestational diabetes are not eligible for funding.
- type 1 diabetes prevention studies will not be considered – these should be submitted to the ITN
or TrialNet as regular Concept Proposals.

Applications for support are accepted year-round, with no application deadlines.

If you would like to discuss your Concept Proposal or Full Application:

GENERAL CONCEPT & FULL PROPOSAL ENQUIRIES

Philip Bernstein, Ph.D. - Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Review
Phone: 240.235.6158
Facsimile: 240.235.6198
e-mail: pbernstein@immunetolerance.org