RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.—The Burroughs Wellcome Fund has announced the 2008 recipients of the Career Awards for Medical Scientists.
The Career Awards for Medical Scientists program is the result of the reformulation of the Career Awards in the Biomedical Sciences, which was instituted by BWF in 1995 and ran through the 2006 award year. In response to the NIH’s K99/R00 Pathway to Independence program, which was modeled after the CABS award, BWF has shifted the focus of the program to address the on-going problem of increasing the number of physician scientists and keeping them in research. BWF believes that this five-year $700,000 bridging award, supporting the last years of a mentored position in addition to supporting the beginning years of an independent position, will facilitate the transition to a career in research and buy research time from service commitments.
“Physician scientists are essential to translating the fruits of basic research into applications that have the potential to improve health,” BWF President Enriqueta C. Bond, Ph.D. said. “This program provides essential support during a critical transition period.”
Awards are offered to the individual investigator on behalf of the research institutions in the United States or Canada. The next deadline for applications is October 1, 2008.
The 2009 Career Awards for Medical Scientists are:
Antonios O. Aliprantis, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard School of Public Health
Novel regulators of the osteoclast differentiation program
Kathleen H. Burns, M.D., Ph.D.
Johns Hopkins University
Investigating the role of retrotransposons in hematopoietic neoplasias
Daniel Cahill, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School
Translational molecular genetic analyses of chemotherapeutic resistance in human brain tumors
Alice Siau-In Chen-Plotkin, M.D.
University of Pennsylvania
Genomic approaches to frontotemporal dementia
Sandeep Robert Datta, M.D., Ph.D.
Columbia University
Characterization of neural circuits that drive innate behaviors
Joseph Alexander Duncan, M.D., Ph.D.
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Dissecting cryopyrin-mediated inflammatory signaling and its role in the pathogenesis of infectious diseases
Wendy Sarah Garrett, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard School of Public Health
Novel effectors and regulators of inflammation, chronic infection, and carcinogenesis in the colon
Jeffrey Parker Henderson, M.D., Ph.D.
Washington University
Iron acquisition by bacterial siderophores as a pathogenic determinant in urinary tract infections
Lu Quang Le, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center-Dallas
Cell of origin and tumor microenvironment in NF1-associated neurofibroma development
Ravindra Majeti, M.D., Ph.D.
Stanford University
Identification and targeting of human acute myeloid leukemia stem cell-specific cell surface molecules
Heather Christy Mefford, M.D., Ph.D.
University of Washington
Novel genomic rearrangements in developmental pediatric disorders
Ken Nakamura, M.D., Ph.D.
University of California-San Francisco
Physiologic and pathologic interactions of alpha-synuclein with mitochondria in Parkinson’s disease
Robert M. Plenge, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School
Genotype-phenotype studies of rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility genes
David Tevis Pride, M.D., Ph.D.
Stanford University
Bacteriophage communities in oral health and disease
Miguel Nicolas Rivera, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
Characterization of a novel X-linked tumor suppressor, WTX, in pediatric cancer
Agata Smogorzewska, M.D., Ph.D.
Harvard Medical School
Role of the Fanconi Anemia and other DNA crosslink repair pathways in genome maintenance and cancer prevention
ABOUT THE FUND
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is an independent, private foundation dedicated to advancing the medical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities. For more information about BWF, contact Russ Campbell, Communications Officer, at 919-991-5119 or visit our web site at http//www.bwfund.org