Top Stories - Grants

The new San Diego Skeletal Muscle Research Center will be made up of three core facilities shared by five local institutions.
New muscle research center...

The NIH recently awarded a new grant to establish the San Diego Skeletal Muscle Research Center,...

How can patient advocates help drive basic research?
Four ways patient advocates...

Last week I attended the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa, an annual event organized by CONNECT. The...

Drosophila
Heart team gets pumped up

A collaborative team led by Dr. Gabriel Haddad at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD),...

Dr. Sumit Chanda
Big boost for HIV research

A research team led by Dr. John Young, professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and...

And the Cancer Center Pilot Project Program grants go to…

by on May 10, 2012 at 9:40 am | 0 Comments
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Two research teams, including Dr. Ranjan Perera (left) and Dr. Steven Smith (right), were awarded Pilot Project Program grants from Sanford-Burnham's NCI-designated Cancer Center

Two research teams, including Dr. Ranjan Perera (left) and Dr. Steven Smith (right), were awarded Pilot Project Program grants from Sanford-Burnham's NCI-designated Cancer Center

As part of its Pilot Project Program, Sanford-Burnham’s National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center received and reviewed 10 applications for funding this year. Applications for these grants, designed to kick-start new collaborative projects, were submitted by scientists from all of the Institute’s research centers and they were reviewed by a panel of senior faculty members, including adjunct faculty, scientific advisory board (SAB) members, and external experts.

More than 20 researchers and experts participated in this year’s peer-review process to select the winners of the grants. The applications and the respective reviews were then discussed by a panel, which ranked the grants and determined the winners.

On May 1, the two grants of $75,000 each were awarded to:

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Teaming up to tackle brain tumors

by on May 3, 2012 at 10:19 am | 2 Comments
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Glioblastoma multiforme (bright ring at right), as seen by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Glioblastoma multiforme (bright ring at right), as seen by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

We are pleased to announce our role in a new multidisciplinary study aimed at finding novel brain cancer therapies. The team, led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), includes Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, the Van Andel Research Institute (VARI), and the Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters.

A $4.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will fund the five-year search to find new ways of treating glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and lethal form of brain cancer. Primary brain tumors are among the top 10 causes of cancer death in the U.S., and more than 80,000 Americans have primary malignant brain tumors.

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Florida Department of Health and Sanford-Burnham to kick off collaborative research program

by on April 25, 2012 at 1:30 pm | 0 Comments
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The Collaborative Research Grant program will provide Florida scientists with access to our screening center

The Collaborative Research Grant program will provide Florida scientists with access to our screening center

Last week was a great one for medical researchers across the state of Florida. The state legislature and governor approved funding for the Collaborative Research Grant program between the Florida Department of Health and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. Starting in July, the program will provide scientists at universities and non-profit institutes throughout Florida with access to Sanford-Burnham scientists and our state-of-the-art technologies for drug discovery. This includes access to the Institute’s Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics.

Together with the Florida Department of Health, Sanford-Burnham will develop a competitive grant program, based on peer-review that will provide funds for collaborative projects between Florida-based research scientists and Sanford-Burnham’s fully operational, state-of-the-art drug discovery technology center based at Lake Nona.

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Peering in at peer review

by on April 19, 2012 at 10:48 am | 0 Comments
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Timothy Osborne, Ph.D., professor and program director in Sanford-Burnham's Diabetes and Obesity Center, was recently appointed to the NIH’s Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology Study Section.

Timothy Osborne, Ph.D., professor and program director in Sanford-Burnham's Diabetes and Obesity Research Center, was recently appointed to the NIH’s Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology Study Section.

A majority of the nation’s biomedical research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH spends billions of dollars supporting research on everything from aging to zoster virus, so how do they decide which projects to fund? The answer is peer review.

Scientific review officers in the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review receive more than 80,000 grant applications each year and recruit independent experts from the scientific community to evaluate them. Each grant application is assigned to a particular Study Section—a group of about 20 experts on the research topic addressed in the application. Study Section members must be recognized authorities in their fields and lead research projects comparable to those being reviewed.

Timothy Osborne, Ph.D., professor and director of the Metabolic Signaling and Disease Program in Sanford-Burnham’s Diabetes and Obesity Research Center, was recently appointed to the NIH’s Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology Study Section.

“The cornerstone of the NIH peer-review system is the initial Study Section review, where active primary scientists meet and evaluate the scientific merit of peer-submitted proposals,” Osborne says. “It’s vital for the health of this system that our best fair-minded colleagues actively participate in the process to ensure quality and fairness in the system. I am honored and privileged to be a part of the process and consider it my obligation to my colleagues.”

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Why the economy depends on federal funding for medical research

by on February 22, 2012 at 3:03 pm | 0 Comments
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NIH Funding

NIH funding is crucial for medical research

When Sanford-Burnham CEO John Reed, M.D., Ph.D. traveled to Washington, D.C., in early February, he attended a variety of Capitol Hill briefings to discuss the importance of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for medical research. He pointed out that NIH grants account for approximately 80 percent of all funding for non-profit medical research institutions in the United States, such as Sanford-Burnham.

NIH grants contribute to the ultimate goal of developing new treatments for diseases and improving the quality of life for millions of Americans and people worldwide. The research supported by these grants also generates U.S. patents that fuel the biotechnology industry and creates thousands of jobs across the nation. NIH funding supports the training of our biomedical research workforce and strengthens the foundation of a 21st century knowledge-based economy.

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New muscle research center opens in San Diego

by on January 27, 2012 at 6:23 am | 0 Comments
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The new San Diego Skeletal Muscle Research Center will be made up of three core facilities shared by five local institutions.

The new San Diego Skeletal Muscle Research Center will be made up of three core facilities shared by five local institutions.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently awarded a new grant to establish the San Diego Skeletal Muscle Research Center. This new center, led by UC San Diego’s Rick Lieber, Ph.D., Sanford-Burnham’s Mark Mercola, Ph.D., and The Scripps Research Institute’s Velia Fowler, Ph.D., will allow 21 scientists at five different research institutions to combine their expertise and state-of-the-art methods to accelerate  research that advances our understanding of skeletal muscles and the diseases that affect them.

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Innovation for IBD

by on August 29, 2011 at 2:28 pm | 0 Comments
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Dr. Fred Levine, director of the Sanford Children's Health Research Center

Dr. Fred Levine, director of the Sanford Children's Health Research Center

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced that Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Fred Levine and Dr. Hudson Freeze will receive a 2011 Innovator Award for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Research. The team will receive a $100,000, one-year grant for their idea to develop new IBD treatments by targeting a protein called HNF-4a.

HNF-4a is a nuclear receptor, meaning that it directly binds DNA and turns genes on or off in response to outside signals. HNF4a is found throughout the intestine, where it helps maintain structural integrity of the intestinal lining. Previous studies suggest that HNF4a might play a role in IBD. In a mouse model of IBD, lack of HNF4a increased disease severity. HNF4a levels are also low in intestinal biopsy samples from IBD patients. Given this information, it makes sense that enhancing HNF4a function might have the opposite effect, diminishing the disease. However, there hasn’t been a practical way to do that—until now.

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Shared resources, shared successes

by on August 8, 2011 at 1:27 pm | 0 Comments
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Microscope available in Sanford-Burnham's Cell Imaging facility

Microscope available in Sanford-Burnham's Cell Imaging facility

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of posts highlighting Shared Resources available at Sanford-Burnham. Future posts will further explore some of the individual capabilities found in these core facilities.

Suppose you’re a new assistant professor just starting your career at Sanford-Burnham, and you need to perform some high-resolution fluorescence microscopy to finish your first big paper as a principal investigator. How do you afford that $400,000 confocal microscope for the key experiments? For that matter, how does anyone afford a $400,000 microscope? Here’s where Shared Resources saves the day. Just down the stairway sits the Zeiss Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope that Sanford-Burnham’s Cell Imaging facility has thoughtfully provided for you. How did you get so lucky?

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Firing on all cylinders

by on January 21, 2011 at 11:25 am | 0 Comments
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January is a good time to reflect on the previous year and plan for the new one. Recently, Sanford-Burnham CEO Dr. John Reed delivered his annual State of the Institute address at both our Orlando and San Diego campuses.

As Dr. Reed noted, 2010 was quite a productive year. On January 26, we announced T. Denny Sanford’s$50 million gift and our new name: Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. In addition to Mr. Sanford’s gift, significant contributions were made by Pauline Foster, Arthur Brody and Gary and Jeanne Herberger. Also, the Sanford-Burnham Gala had a record year.

Dr. Reed welcomed new faculty, including Drs. Carl Ware, Robert Wechsler-Reya, Sheila Collins Fraydoon Rastinejad, Sepideh Khorasanizadeh, Xianlin Han, Salvatore Albani, and Alessandra Sacco. He also noted that, despite stagnant research funding, Sanford-Burnham had an excellent year bringing in grant funding to advance important research.

“According to government data, last year, our main source for support, the NIH, funded fewer grants than it has for any year in the last nine years,” said Dr. Reed. “When adjusted for inflation, and excluding the one-time stimulus funding, NIH budgets have been in net decline. Despite those challenging circumstances, last year we posted a nine percent increase in grant revenue institute-wide, surpassing the $100 million mark for the first time.”

But of course, the highlight was the research. Sanford-Burnham scientists helped produce more than 300 peer-reviewed papers last year. That’s a lot of ground to cover,  so Dr. Reed could only give a few highlights:

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Four ways patient advocates help drive research

by on December 16, 2010 at 2:53 pm | 5 Comments
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How can patient advocates help drive basic research?

How can patient advocates help drive basic research?

Last week I attended the Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa, an annual event organized by CONNECT. The meeting included all the stellar scientific panels I expected and one I didn’t expect: “Patient Advocacy 2.0 – Can they participate?”

The panel discussed opportunities for patient participation and the ethics involved. I was captivated by panel member Dani Grady’s story of surviving breast cancer and her advocacy for increased cancer research funding, education, improved patient care and more patient participation in clinical trials. It was interesting to hear how a patient’s perspective can improve clinical trials and the drug approval process. But as I sat there, I couldn’t help wondering… how can patients participate in basic research – the earliest phase of biomedical discovery, during which the molecular underpinnings of disease are only just beginning to be understood?

So I did a little research of my own.

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Where Structure Meets Function

by on September 30, 2010 at 10:06 am | 2 Comments
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The human genome project taught us a lot about the number and sequences of our genes, but not a whole lot about what they do. In the years since, scientists have been using that genomic information to examine the structures of proteins, the molecules that carry out our genes’ instructions (see DNA 101). Structural information is being used to answer biological questions about protein function – how they facilitate chemical reactions, carry molecular signals in and out of cells and control cellular movements. There’s a growing need to understand how multiple proteins work together to accomplish all that and more.As part of their Protein Structure Initiative (PSI), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) at the National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year, $6.8 million grant to a team led by Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Robert Liddington and Stanford University’s Dr. W. James Nelson. PSI was formed in 1999 to help researchers establish the structure of more proteins, faster. Now in its third phase, called PSI:Biology, PSI structure determination centers are partnering with scientists like Dr. Liddington and Dr. Nelson to address important biological questions linking a protein’s structure and its function.

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Core Grant Renewal Continues a 30-Year Legacy

by on September 28, 2010 at 3:39 pm | 0 Comments
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Sanford-Burnham’s Cancer Center has received a five-year core grant renewal from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The renewal, which runs through 2015, will provide more than $21 million to support advanced cancer research, a 21 percent increase over the previous grant. Sanford-Burnham has been an NCI-designated basic research Cancer Center since 1981, one of only seven in the nation.

“NCI Cancer Center designation is a national benchmark, and our renewal with an “outstanding” rating confirms the exceptional quality of cancer research at Sanford-Burnham,” says President Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D. “The significant budget increase we received is a tremendous honor and a reflection of the hard work and dedication by faculty and staff throughout the Institute.”

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Heart team gets pumped up

by on September 28, 2010 at 8:21 am | 0 Comments
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A collaborative team led by Dr. Gabriel Haddad at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), which includes Sanford-Burnham’s Dr. Rolf Bodmer, Dr. Pilar Ruiz-Lozano, Dr. Karen Ocorr and Dr. Giovanni Paternostro, was awarded a $10 million grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. The team will research the molecular response to low oxygen levels – a condition known as hypoxia– in heart, lung and brain cells.

“This funding will allow us to develop powerful predictions of how the human heart and other organs can be protected from hypoxia-inflicted injury by studying both fruit flies, which are very tolerant to low oxygen, and mice, which are less tolerant,” explains Dr. Bodmer, professor and director of Sanford-Burnham’s Development and Aging Program.

According to Dr. Paternostro, adjunct assistant professor, ”This grant will allow us to continue our work on the systems biology and metabolomics of hypoxia, an ongoing collaboration with Dr. Haddad and with the other scientists participating in the funded project.”

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Big boost for HIV research

by on August 16, 2010 at 1:41 pm | 8 Comments
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A research team led by Dr. John Young, professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Dr. Sumit Chanda, associate professor at Sanford-Burnham, was awarded a $21 million Program Project Grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This funding will allow the team to analyze the innate immune response (the body’s earliest defenses) against HIV infection using a systems biology approach. This large-scale initiative aims to increase our understanding of all the body’s cellular and molecular factors that work together to respond to HIV-1 infection and how these factors influence a patient’s prognosis.

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Researchers receive $3.5 million in NIH grants

by on May 5, 2010 at 11:59 am | 0 Comments
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Two researchers at Sanford-Burnham at Lake Nona have received grants to study  heart disease and how fat cells function in the body.Lake Nona Scientific Director Dr. Daniel Kelly will be collaborating with Dr. Deborah M. Muoio of the Stedman Center at Duke University to investigate the metabolic basis of heart failure. The $2.9 million, four-year grant will help researchers better understand the mechanisms that cause heart disease and identify potential drug targets for heart failure.

Dr. Sheila Collins received a $525,000, two-year grant to study how beta-adrenergic receptors on fat cells regulate growth. This research will enhance our understanding of how fat cells contribute to metabolic syndrome and could also lead to new drug targets.