Scleroderma Foundation Funds $1 Million in New Research
Grants to Seven Investigators
Seven researchers have been selected to receive funding
from the Scleroderma Foundation to study the causes
and potential cures of the disease for the 2007 funding
cycle. The researchers will share $1 million in funds
for their research projects, which are either two or
three years in length.
The Foundation’s Peer Review Committee received
44 proposals and identified seven most worthy of funding.
Based on guidelines established by the Foundation, each
of the proposals dealt with an aspect of scleroderma.
The committee scored each proposal using National Institutes
of Health (NIH) criteria.
Of the seven researchers who were selected, four are
new investigators, while three are established investigators.
The two highest scoring research proposals receive the
Foundation’s Marta Marx and Mark Flapan awards.
The Marta Marx Eradication of Scleroderma Award is funded
by bequests from Marta Marx, who had scleroderma, and
her brother Rudolph Juhl. The Mark Flapan Award is named
for the late psychologist and scleroderma patient whose
contribution to the Foundation’s publications
and literature of scleroderma paved the way for greater
patient understanding.
This year’s Marta Marx winner is Rachel Clark,
M.D., Ph.D., of Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
This year’s Flapan Award goes to Michael Robert
York, M.D. of Boston University Medical School.
“The recipients of this year's research grant
awards successfully traversed a highly competitive field
of research proposals. The awardees were selected on
the strong merit of their proposals and represent a
balanced mixture of new and established investigators,
basic and translational research, as well as health
services research,” said Rick Silver, M.D., of
Medical University of South Carolina and Peer Review
Committee chair. “These Scleroderma Foundation
awards will enable new investigators to embark on a
career of scleroderma research while enticing established
investigators to enter the field and to undertake new
and innovative avenues of research.”
The Foundation has been funding scleroderma research
projects since 1989. Since then, $12.6 million has been
allocated to this research program.
To learn more about our research philosophy and our
awardees past and present, please visit the research
section of our Web site:
www.scleroderma.org/research/researchhome.shtm.
The following are the recipients of the 2007 research
funds:
- Rachael Clark, M.D., Ph.D., Brigham & Women’s
Hospital
- Marlene Rabinovich, M.D., Stanford University School
of Medicine
- Carlo Selmi, M.D., Ph.D., University of California
at Davis School of Medicine
- Silvia Smaldone, Ph.D., University of Medicine and
Dentistry of New Jersey
- Branko Stefanovic, Ph.D., Florida State University
College of Medicine
- Michael Robert York, M.D., Boston University Medical
Center
- Hon K.Yuen, Ph.D., OTR, Medical University of South
Carolina
Learn
more about these researchers and their projects.
|
