Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Stanford Alzheimer's Disease Research Center - JEDI Call for Proposals 2023

Request for Developmental Project applications that address scientific issues on inequities and ethno-racial differences in risks, manifestations, and outcomes for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders

Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Stanford Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC)

Developmental Projects on Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease related disorders (AD/ADRD)

$150,000 (anticipated project period: 6/1/23-3/31/25)

Deadline extended: April 10, 2023 11:00pm

Amount of funding and budget information:

Applicants may request up to $150,000 in direct costs for over one and a half years (expires 3/31/25) under this program. The Stanford ADRC plans to fund up to two developmental projects this year, based on the number and scientific quality of applications. The budget period is anticipated to begin 06/01/2023-3/31/2025, pending NIA approval.

Eligibility:

All Stanford faculty (UTL, UML, NTL-Research, CE), Instructors, and post-doctoral fellows.

This funding mechanism is intended to allow an investigator the opportunity to develop robust preliminary data sufficient to provide the basis for an application for independent research support from the NIH or other agency.  Developmental project grants are designed for 1) for junior faculty investigators, as are postdoctoral fellows or instructors transitioning to an academic position (or the equivalent) at Stanford (this grant is non-transferable).  and 2) for more senior investigators who have experience in areas other than Alzheimer’s disease or Lewy body research, and who want to work in the Alzheimer research field broadly defined or want to try a new hypothesis, method, or approach that is not an extension of ongoing Alzheimer or Lewy body research.

Individuals from racial, ethnic, or other groups that are underrepresented in biomedical research, as well as individuals with disabilities, are encouraged to apply. The expectation is that proposed research will allow the investigator to develop preliminary data sufficient for the basis of an application for independent support. You do not have to submit your application through your RPM.

An investigator is eligible only once for development project support.

Senior ADRC faculty are not eligible to submit applications but may be included as unfunded collaborators. 

Note: a PI waiver will be required for non-faculty successful applicants. PI waivers would need to be approved by the appropriate schools or Dean of Research. For School of Medicine PIs, requests must be made to the Research Management Group (RMG). For PIs outside of the school of Medicine, the individual must work with their school dean’s office. Postdoctoral fellows in senior, academic trajectory can apply as PI if Co-PI is faculty advisor/mentor who is UTL, UML, NTL-Research, CE who will in turn be responsible for all oversight, budget and reporting requirements of the project.  

Purpose:

The Stanford ADRC focuses on Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment, Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body disease, and healthy aging. We seek proposals addressing issues related to inequities and ethno-racial differences in AD risk, manifestations, and outcomes, including but not limited to innovative research (basic, clinical, behavioral, translational, epidemiologic, caregiving, or educational) likely to advance our understanding of the impacts of health disparities in Alzheimer’s and related dementias and aid in prevention or treatment; or enhance caregiving, community outreach and education.

Example areas can include health disparities in stress processes and exposure to adversity, cost and/or access to care, education and geographic disparities, structural racism, diagnosis and assessment procedures, disparities in caregiving and dementia care, biology of AD, analyses of pathways that create and sustain AD disparities and others. Those investigating novel methods of recruitment and engagement of minoritized populations, as well as advancement of methods to capture the complex interplay of social determinants of health and their impact on health outcomes are also welcome. For more details on the National Institute of Aging emphasis on health disparities, please see here. (https://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dbsr/ad-adrd/disparities).

Preference is given to proposals that use data and resources from the Stanford ADRC, including clinical data, biological specimens (e.g., blood, DNA, CSF, stool microbiome, skin fibroblasts, autopsy tissues), imaging data (including structural MR and amyloid-PET), and biostatistical resources; or that use data and resources of the National Alzheimer Coordinating Center (https://www.alz.washington.edu/), National Centralized Repository for AD (NCRAD) (https://ncrad.iu.edu/), and the National Institute on Aging Genetics of AD Data Storage (NIAGADS), (https://www.niagads.org/).  Please be sure to address type of ADRC resources and how such resources will be used in your proposal.  Note that direct access to Stanford ADRC participants is limited, and you will need to obtain approval from Center PI.

Contact/Questions:

Programmatic questions should be directed to Dr. Katrin Andreasson, chair of the Developmental Project Review Committee (kandreas@stanford.edu), administrative questions to Nusha Askari (askarin@stanford.edu), Senior Administrator of the ADRC.

If selected and funded:

Funding is contingent upon receipt of all required documents and protocols and approval by the NIA, and verification of approved protocols, (eg., IRB, if needed), should be submitted to Nusha Askari at the ADRC. An annual report and final progress report in NIH format will also be due to Nusha Askari. A presentation to the ADRC team and presentation of progress is required, usually at the time of the annual site visit of the ADRC External Advisory Board. 

***When you email your application to Nusha Askari (askarin@stanford.edu), please send via secure email. We welcome all eligible investigators, per above guidelines.

The Stanford ADRC aims to support researchers from groups that are under-represented and historically excluded populations in medical sciences. Please note any relevant groups that you identify with, including first generation college student, being from a low-income or rural community, Black/African American, Latinx, Indigenous/Native American/Alaska Native, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Hmong, Vietnamese, LGBTQIA+, individuals with disabilities, Veterans, experienced homelessness, formerly incarcerated/justice involved. We would appreciate if you would add in the body of your email your self-identified sex/gender and race and ethnicity, if applicable. This is voluntary information requested by the NIA for our reporting purposes in our annual report – they would like to know the representation of all of our applicants, where possible. We appreciate your understanding and will try to limit access to this information via summaries etc. where possible.

Selection process:

The ADRC Developmental Project Review Committee will review and recommend action on all

Developmental Project applications. You will receive a notification of selection by May 2023.

The goal is to bring in junior faculty and senior faculty not currently working in AD/ADRD research, with a focus on health disparities, and our review process prioritizes these groups. We will consider other applicants as well, depending on the number of quality applications we receive.  

Note: the release of funds after selection is contingent upon formal approval of the National Institute on Aging and verification by ADRC of the recipient's human subject, SCRO, and animal subject approvals and compliance with other administrative issues. 

For any non-faculty awardees, before funding can be released, as per Stanford policy, we will require a letter of support from the faculty mentor or department chair who will have oversight of expenditures via Stanford's system.