For Complete Submission Details:

1. ANH Collaborative, Multi-Institutional Seed Grant Opportunity

2. ANH Collaborative, Multi-Institutional Pre-Center Grant Opportunity

Program Background

Exceptional progress in the fundamental understanding of health and disease has not translated into comparably comforting advances in the clinic, in fields such as oncology, cardiovascular disease, and infectious pathologies. As scientists become more adept at manipulating materials at the nanometer scale, the possibility of addressing human health concerns through nanotechnology becomes more of a reality. This emerging field of medical research, termed nanomedicine, promises to impact medicine in an unparalleled way. Simply put, nanomedicine is the ability to understand and address the molecular origins of diseases that originate within a human cell and apply nanotechnology’s power to control individual molecules to the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of these debilitating and incurable illnesses. Never before have scientists and clinicians been able to combat disease at the cellular level; nanomedicine has the potential to afford them that ability. Eight institutions of the Greater Houston Region have committed to leading the way in this emerging field and have united to form the Alliance for NanoHealth (ANH), the first multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional collaborative research endeavor aimed solely at using nanotechnology to bridge the gaps between medicine, biology, materials science, computer science, and public policy. Its principal goal is to provide new clinical approaches to saving lives through better diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.

The challenge of growing the field of nanohealth is bringing together the critical areas of expertise that truly understand nanotechnology, medicine, and everything in between. To do so requires a large number of scientific disciplines, many of which have never crossed paths. The ANH understands this challenging dilemma and has established a precedence of building new scientific collaborative relationships between technology and clinical experts through sponsorship of cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional research endeavors. As prerequisite for ANH support, investigators from ANH Institutions are required to interact and collaborate with others within the ANH Community that reaches beyond that of their home institution. Rarely do funding agencies such as the NIH or NSF, award projects that have little or no preliminary data, aim to address a new field of science, or involve such unique scientific collaborations.

Seed Grant Summary:

The ANH plans to create a new inter-institutional grant competition for ANH researchers in order to provide seed funding and/or equipment for such high-risk research projects in nanomedicine. Proposals submitted in response to this request for applications (RFA) will be required to include at least 2 ANH Institutions, so as to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration. The ANH has demonstrated that by providing its researchers with seed funding to facilitate such cutting-edge research significantly increases the potential to achieve larger, peer-reviewed grants in addition to contributing to the development of new publications and intellectual property.

This ANH Seed Grant opportunity is intended to catalyze the formation of new high-risk exploratory projects in nanomedicine to advance novel inter-disciplinary collaborations toward success in obtaining external resources. A maximum budget of $100,000 over a two (2) year period is allowed. The maximum budget of $100,000 shall include direct and indirect costs. Approximately eight to ten (8-10) awards are anticipated. (Please see pdf for more details)

Pre-Center Grant Summary:

In addition to these seed grant opportunities, the ANH will also sponsor programmatically more developed collaborative nanomedicine projects in efforts to facilitate the accrual of scientific critical mass needed to acquire competitive advantage when pursuing Center-of-Excellence level Federal funding opportunities. This program requires a minimum of 3 ANH member institutions to apply. Both ANH RFA’s require the development of proposals that address any medical concern currently threatening the state of human health, such as disease or infection. Of primary importance, however, is that the proposals approach the problem using nanotechnology, such as a new diagnostic tool or therapeutic platform for combating disease and/or infection. In the end, an ANH sponsored grant competition will ensure that these innovative research ideas aimed at applying nanotechnology to medicine become the foundation of medicine’s future.

The Pre-center Grants are designed for teams (existing or new) to present well conceived plans for developing centers of excellence utilizing nanotechnology to address clinical issues. The expectation is that these teams will be competitive for extramural center grant funding within two (2) years. A maximum budget of $400,000 for a two (2) year period is allowed to provide resources need to secure preliminary data relevant to team goals. The maximum budget of $400,000 shall include direct and indirect costs. Approximately two to four (2-4) awards are anticipated. (Please see pdf for more details)