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Harvard Catalyst announces the first round of pilot grant recipients

March 20, 2009

Sixty-two collaborative groups, comprising 218 investigators from 23 Harvard schools and academic healthcare centers, received word in March that they had received awards in the first round of Harvard Catalyst Pilot Grants. The selected projects were chosen from a pool of 607 (representing 1,448 investigators) submitted in response to a request for applications (RFA) released this past September.

Click here to view the full list of awardees and reviewers.

With these one-year, $50,000 grants, Harvard Catalyst aims to stimulate clinical and translational research in three ways. First, the grants bring together researchers from different institutions and/or disciplines – people who, in many cases, may never have previously had an opportunity to collaborate – to jointly address important scientific questions. Second, they provide the means to generate the preliminary data needed to apply for long-term funding, an important consideration for junior investigators in particular as they work to establish independent research programs. Lastly, the grants help focus scientific resources and expertise on high-risk, high-impact areas of research.

The projects selected for funding cover a broad range of topics, from technology development to community health, from tissue engineering to targeted therapeutics, from new diagnostic methods to biomarker discovery. All of the projects have the potential to yield results that will help address important issues in human health.

“We needed to bring together expertise in radiology, endocrinology, and psychiatry, which would have been difficult to do within any one place,” said Elizabeth Lawson, M.D., an instructor at Harvard Medical School and a pilot grant recipient from Massachusetts General Hospital. “This grant, and the underlying infrastructure created by Harvard Catalyst, provides a tremendous opportunity for us to collaborate across disciplines and institutions.”

Laura Holsen, Ph.D., another HMS instructor and a co-investigator of Lawson’s from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, added, “Liz and I had met once before, but never had a chance to collaborate until this opportunity came along. Working together, we feel strongly that we can bring about a novel approach to thinking about the neurobiology of anorexia nervosa,” the main focus of their grant.

“My lab has, for over 40 years, strictly focused on basic scientific research,” noted Jonathan Beckwith, Ph.D., American Cancer Society Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at HMS and another pilot grant recipient. “Our project, however, will take my lab’s recent findings in E. coli genetics and apply them to both tuberculosis and blood coagulation. The Quad- and hospital-based collaborations needed to conduct this study would not likely have come together without this support from Harvard Catalyst.”

Throughout the grant review process, it was apparent that a new sense of community was rising among the applicants and the reviewers.

“The response to the first pilot grant RFA was astounding, with over 1,400 investigators, nearly 10 percent of all Harvard faculty, responding,” said Lee Nadler, M.D., dean of clinical and translational research and director of Harvard Catalyst. “The grants tapped a strong desire among people to collaborate across departments and institutions, and have helped us start to build a community of clinical and translational researchers that spans the university.”

“The Pilot Grants of Harvard Catalyst demonstrate the drive among the faculty to collaborate on unique problems,” according to Jeffrey Flier, M.D., dean of HMS. “Watching this process unfold has confirmed my deep conviction that we can most effectively impact human health by encouraging people from across Harvard who have never worked face to face to work together.”

The staff of Harvard Catalyst hopes that the investigators not selected for this round of Pilot Grants will continue to work together and strengthen the collaborations they proposed. “So many of the applications we received merited support,” said Harvard Catalyst Research Navigator Zeke Bernstein-Hanley, Ph.D., “and we encourage those investigators who were not selected to consider reapplying for the next funding round. In addition, we recognize that there may be other funding venues for these applications, and may be able to suggest some alternatives in late summer or early fall.”

New RFA in April
The application window for the next round of Harvard Catalyst Pilot Grants will open in early April. For more information, please visit the Pilot Funding page on the Harvard Catalyst website. Harvard Catalyst encourages those considering applying in the next round to contact a Research Navigator with questions regarding the Pilot Grants.