Despite a stiff competitive environment for external funding and a slow-to-recover national economy, the amount of Keck School of Medicine research grant funding has greatly increased in recent years. Most notably, during fiscal year (FY) 2011, Keck School received $248.3 million in grant awards—a 14 percent increase from FY 2010 and a 43 percent increase over the previous four fiscal years (the largest four-year increase over the past 13 years). Other recent highlights include: Keck School plus its affiliates received $312.2 million in grant awards during FY 2011, representing a 13 percent increase from FY 2010; Keck School affiliate Children’s Hospital Los Angeles received $10 million more in grant awards in FY 2011 than in FY 2010; NIH awards comprised 73 percent of the total grants awarded in FY 2011 or $169.1 million. This is the highest percentage of NIH versus total grants in the past seven years.

Alexandre Bonnin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Research for the Cell & Neurobiology department at the Keck School of Medicine’s  research work was featured in July’s eNews, Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Awarding NARSAD Grants publication focusing on early intervention for young people. Dr. Bonnin was the 2010 Freedman Prizewinner and has been awarded two NARSAD Young Investigator Grants for his “research aimed at understanding the ways in which interactions between mother and fetus affect fetal brain development and can increase the risk of developing mental illness in the postnatal period and in adult life.” Click here to read the complete article, entitled “Breakthrough Discoveries of In-Utero Brain Development and Its Links to Mental Illness”.

The USC Vice President for Research, Randolph Hall, announced that the USC Libraries, USC Information Technology Services and USC Shoah Foundation Institute have launched a new center to supply Digital Repository functions to research efforts and digital collections at USC.  Expanding the systems employed to digitize, catalog, digitally preserve and provide access to the 8 petaybyte collection of video in the USC Shoah Foundation Institute archives, the USC community can now process collections of all media types and sizes for the incremental costs of adding the content to the USC Digital Repository.  As an additional service, high speed disk storage is available for rent at $70/terabyte/month from the USC Digital Repository enterprise disk arrays with no limit in volume of storage or access.  Another service also offered is digital preservation storage where projects can store files for 20 years on digital tape archives with 100% bit accuracy at a onetime cost of $1,000/Terabyte. This system will make sure all files are on fresh media and stay exactly the same with no loss for this 20 year period. If you are interested in these services, please contact the USC Digital Repository Operations Manager, Linda Truong, at 213-740-9263 or for more information visit the USC Digital Repository website.

Offered through the USC Department of Contracts and Grants, the C&G Curriculum is a comprehensive training program developed to meet the needs of today’s evolving research environment and to help clarify sponsored project administration processes at USC. Sample topics include, DCG, SPA and Purchasing- do and how they differ?; How to complete proposal forms correctly; How to craft a concise and well written budget justification; and Policies and procedures governing contracts and grants. Click Here to register.

We are soliciting nominations for the Beckman Young Investigators Program.  USC may forward one candidate. If you are interested in this funding opportunity, please email your CV/biosketch and a one-page research summaries by August 5 to Gigi Petrovich, the KSOM Office of Research Advancement. The Beckman Young Investigators Program seeks to provide research support to faculty in the early stages of their careers in the chemical and life sciences.  Grants may be in the range of $750,000 over the term of the project, and projects are normally funded for a period of 4 years.  The program is open to persons with tenure-track appointments in the chemical and life sciences.  To be eligible, an applicant should not have completed more than five full years in his or her tenure-track or other comparable independent research appointment.  Note that proposals which open up new avenues of research in chemistry and the life sciences by fostering the invention of methods, instruments and materials will be given additional consideration.  Also significant is that the BYI program is intended to provide funding to individuals with minimal or no external funding from parent or other organizations.  For more Program information, click here.

NSF has announced their Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) competition. USC has one slot for preliminary proposals.  Each school can nominate one candidate.  Interested candidates should send CVs/biosketch and a 1-2 page research summary to Gigi Petrovich by August 12.   

This PIRE competition will focus exclusively on the area of Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES).  The SEES effort focuses on interdisciplinary topics that will advance sustainability science, engineering and education as an integrative approach to the challenges of adapting to environmental, social, and cultural changes associated with growth and development of human populations, and attaining a sustainable energy future.  Encouraged is research of global sustainability issues including, but not limited to, climate change, clean energy, food security, biodiversity, and communication networks.  Note PIRE projects must include collaboration with foreign research partners and international research experiences for students to promote a diverse internationally competitive science and engineering workforce.  Additionally, NSF expects PIRE projects to involve groups traditionally underrepresented in science and engineering at all levels (faculty, students and postdoctoral researchers). For more Program information, click here.

We are soliciting nominations for the CDC NCIPC¹s Grants for Injury Control Research Centers (R49) (RFA-CE-12-001). Click here for program information. If you are interested in this funding opportunity, please contact Gigi Petrovich no later than August 12, 2011. USC has one slot for this opportunity.

This program is to develop centers that conduct high quality research and help translate scientific discoveries into practice for the prevention and control of fatal and nonfatal injuries, violence, and related disabilities and serve as training centers as well as information centers for the public.

NCIPC has identified three research and program priority areas in injury and/or violence prevention and control: Preventing Child Maltreatment; Preventing Motor Vehicle Injuries; Preventing Falls Among Older Adults. NCIPC has also identified emerging areas of focus in injury and/or violence prevention and control that also meet the criteria of high cost and the availability of solutions: Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI); Preventing Unintentional Drug Overdoses and Poisonings; Preventing Youth Violence. IMPORTANT requirements for PIs: one individual must be designated as the center director- co-center directors are not allowed. The center director must report to an appropriate institutional official, e.g., Dean of a school, Vice-President of a University, or Commissioner of Health. The center director must devote no less than thirty-five percent (35%) effort solely to this grant for each budget year. The center director must have conducted injury and/or violence prevention or control research. The center director must have at least five peer-reviewed injury and/or violence related publications on which they are a senior author. The center director must also demonstrate evidence of having obtained grant funding in the last 10 years. 

The A.P. Giannini Foundation provides fellowships to postdocs who have completed no more than 3 years of postdoctoral research experience and are US citizens or permanent alien residents and hold or will complete a PhD, MD or equivalent degree before they activate the fellowship.  If you are interested in this funding opportunity, kindly contact Gigi Petrovich in the KSOM Office of Research Advancement.  Note: all applications will be forwarded to the Foundation through our office.  Please submit your applications to Gigi Petrovich by the internal deadline of November 1, 2011. Interested applicants should work closely with their mentors in preparing their applications.  Questions can be directed to our office or to Dr. Cheryl Craft, director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affair. For COMPLETE APPLICATION INFORMATION AND GUIDELINES, click here.

Medical Faculty Women's Association (MFWA) Research Fund is accepting proposals for Seed Money for Pilot Projects  Emergency Interim Funding to Continue Ongoing Projects. Applications require a research plan of no more than 3 pages. Applications are due October 1, 2011.  All proposals must be submitted by email to Dr. Florence M. Hofman.  Funding of $10,000 for one year will be based on scientific merit and need. For further information and proposal guidelines contact Dr. Florence M. Hofman.

The CIRM Early Translational Research Initiative aims to fund and advance innovative translational stem cell science toward clinical development. The purpose of this CIRM Early Translational III Research Awards RFA is to support projects that enable the initial stage of translational research including the conduct of studies resulting in proof of concept for a potential development candidate and/or studies to select a Development Candidate (DC).

BWF’s Career Awards at the Scientific Interface provide $500,000 to bridge advanced postdoctoral training and the first years of faculty service. These awards are intended to foster the early career development of researchers with backgrounds in the physical/mathematical/computational sciences and engineers whose work addresses biological questions. These awards are open to U.S. and Canadian citizens or permanent residents as well as to U.S. temporary residents. Eligible candidates for this award may self-nominate by submitting a pre-proposal by no later than September 1, 2011. Click here for full grant details 

The FY12 Topics of the Department of Defense Multi-University Research Initiative (MURI) have been released. The MURI program supports basic science and/or engineering research at U.S. institutions of higher education that is of potential interest to DoD. The program is focused on multidisciplinary research efforts that intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline to address issues of critical concern to the DoD. The grants provide $1-1.5M/yr for up to five years. Please click here for a full description of the program and the current topics of interest.   The white paper due date is Sept 15, 2011.  The due date for the full proposal is Nov 10, 2011. Please click here to find other DOD funding opportunities. 

The University of Southern California Physical Sciences in Oncology Center will be hosting a monthly seminar series. The Center for Applied Molecular Medicine will  be presenting, Claudia Fischbach, Ph.D. , Assistant Professor from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. Dr. Fischbach will be giving a seminar entitled, “Engineered Microenvironments to Study Tumor Angiogenesis.” This event will be held on Friday, August 26th in the Harkness Auditorium, Clinical Sciences Building from 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, Q&A to follow. Lunch will be served for attendees at 11:45 am. Click here for more information.

Please save the date of September 29 for the Ming Hsieh Institute for Engineering Medicine for Cancer symposium, to be held in the Aresty Auditorium within the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Harlyne J.Norris Research Tower on the Health Science Campus. The symposium will address opportunities for translation research in nanomedicine, and include both industry and academic participants. President Nikias will deliver the welcoming address at the symposium. Suggestions for speakers are appreciated. Please send these to vpres@usc.edu. Details on how to RSVP will be provided in August.

• Extramural Nexus (NIH Office of Extramural Research)
• National Postdoctoral Association POSTDOCket
• Academic Medicine Online
• Science Translational Medicine
• Science Magazine
  
  

• Weekly NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices
• Weekly Foundation RFP Bulletin
  

To download an event to your Outlook calendar, please click the relevant hyperlink and at the bottom of the new page choose 'export entry to V-calendar'.

For a comprehensive calendar displaying all research activities currently scheduled, please visit the online Calendar of Events.

Tues Aug 2nd

11:00 am – 12:00 pm –  ZNI/CGP Seminar Series -  Kirk C. Wilhelmsen, MD, PhD., Professor in the Department of Genetics and Neurology from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, will present, “Genetic Analysis of Complex Behavioral Traits.” This Seminar will be held in the Herklotz Seminar Room/ ZNI 112. Click here for further information.

To keep up-to-date on available research funding opportunities, visit these institutions and organizations:

• The National Institutes of Health
• The National Science Foundation
• The Foundation Center
• California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
• Office of Research, University of Southern California
• Keck Office of Research Advancement
• Los Angeles Basin Clinical & Translational Science Institute
• Programs in Biomedical & Biological Sciences (PIBBS)
• Links to Professional Societies Promoting Biomedical Research