Board Issues $3.1M In Biotech Grants | 13-member scientific advisory board scrutinized applications
As National Institutes of Health research funding has flattened out, making it harder for young investigators to get research grants, the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center has awarded $3.1 million to 11 researchers around the state. The funding represents that first grant awards since the state approved its $1 billion life sciences initiative.
Christopher Schonhoff, a researcher at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in North Grafton was one of the 11 new investigators to receive funding. He will be researching the biology of the liver and the implications of its ability to regenerate itself for other types of cells, according to center board member Lydia Villa-Komaroff. She is the CEO of Boston-based Cytonome Inc., which makes clinical-grade optical cell sorting products. Grant recipients receive $100,000 a year for up to three years.
Closing The Gap
At the first meeting of the center’s reconstituted board, it approved the new research grants for a variety of schools including Boston University, three campuses of UMass, Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“NIH funding has been flat for the last five years and that has made it more difficult for young scientists to launch their careers, “ said Susan Windham-Bannister, the new president and CEO of the center. “It is taking so much longer to support their careers that some have left their fields of study. We want the next generation of investigators to get support for their work and stay in the industry.”
The grant program was announced earlier this year and the 11 were chosen from an initial field of 35 applications, according to Kofi Jones, director of communications and external affairs for the Office of Housing and Economic Affairs and the board’s temporary spokesman.
Their grant eligibility was determined followed by a review of their research projects by a peer review group before being sent on to the center’s scientific advisory board for consideration.
Each of the 13 members of the scientific advisory board had primary responsibility for reading, analyzing and scoring three of the submissions, and was also tasked with being familiar with all of the other submissions, according to Villa-Komaroff. There was much discussion of the projects and then the votes were taken.
“Excellence was the main criteria. If you pick really good science, then you are making the best bet on individuals and the science,” she said.
Windham-Bannister said when the advisory board and the board of directors chose the 11 researchers it was also looking for science that could be transferred to the commercial world.
The process also led the board to discuss starting a mentoring process for grant applicants, whether it’s for funds from the center or another organization.
The center also approved $3.5 million for five universities to attract and retain nationally prominent faculty members, which went to Boston University, Brandeis University and three campuses of UMass (Amherst, Boston and Lowell).
UMass President Jack Wilson and Massachusetts General Hospital President Peter Slavin, both of whom are members of the center’s board of directors, recused themselves from different votes when funding for their institutions came up.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments