WHSDM Center (Women's Health & Sex Differences in Medicine) Seed Grants 2024-2025

Stanford Women’s Health and Sex Diversity in Medicine (WHSDM) Center

SEED GRANTS for Biological/Medical Research on Sex Diversity and/or Women’s Health

Deadline: October 14, 2024, 11:59pm

The Stanford Women’s Health and Sex Diversity in Medicine (WHSDM*) Center aims to promote basic, clinical, population, and translational health research on biological sex differences, women’s health, and sexual and gender minority health at the Stanford University School of Medicine (SoM), and to facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations on these topics across SoM Departments and Stanford University. * “wisdom” see: https://med.stanford.edu/whsdm.html

We are particularly eager for School of Medicine faculty to collaborate with faculty from departments other than their own within the School of Medicine, or with faculty from the other Stanford Schools, e.g. Humanities & Science, etc.

WHSDM plans to fund 8-10 grants of approximately $20K (not to exceed $22K) to enable researchers to collect pilot data, conduct feasibility studies, and/or demonstrate interdisciplinary collaborations that would enhance applications to the NIH, NSF, etc. (e.g. R01s, K-awards) for research on the role of the sex in genetics, cell and tissue biology, organ function, etc.; interactions of sex and gender on biology and medical outcomes, e.g. diagnostic tests, treatments, procedures, etc. and/or in women’s health or sexual and gender minority persons’ health, including studies that will help to determine how findings reported in one sex/gender group compare to another, as well as studies that seek to distinguish the influence of sex and gender on health outcomes and/or medical practice.

Please submit budgets with enough detail for personnel, supplies, and other direct costs to enable the Review Committee to determine how funds will be used to achieve your project goals (see below).

Awards will be divided into two payments of 50% of the total award, with the second payment contingent upon satisfactory progress on goals stated in the proposal in relationship to the study timeline, based on a midway progress report to be submitted no later than June 30, 2025. (Funds will be released sooner if these goals are reached sooner.)

Awardees or a co-investigator are expected to present key results of their project, to date at the summer 2025 WHSDM seed grant workshop.

Eligibility:

• Each proposal should include at least one Stanford University Associate or Assistant Professor or K-eligible Instructor and at least one School of Medicine faculty (Full, Associate or Assistant Professor).

• The proposed Principal Investigator must be a Professor, Associate or Assistant Professor in the UTL, NTL, UML, or CE line, or a K-eligible Instructor

• CE faculty and Career Development PI waivers are not needed for internal Stanford funding opportunities.

• Collaborations involving faculty from at least two departments will be favored.

• Proposals that include a faculty partner from across the University (other Schools) will be favored.

Application guidelines: 

By Monday, October 14, 2024 (11:59 pm) please submit one PDF file containing the following in the order listed below via email attachment to:

Dr. Marcia Stefanick, Director, Stanford WHSDM Center stefanick@stanford.edu                                           cc: T.O. Preising preising@stanford.edu 

File name: Last name_WHSDM_Seed_grant.pdf

Institutional representative: you do not have to work with your RPM to prepare your budget or your internal proposal. You can submit your proposals directly to Dr. Stefanick per these instructions.

1. Title Page

Name of this RFP: Stanford WHSDM Seed Grants for Biological/Medical Research on Sex Diversity, Women’s Health and/or Sexual and Gender Minority Health

Project Title

PI name, title, department, address, phone, and email address

Co-PI(s) name, title, department, address, phone, and email address

Finance Manager for the project name, Org Code, and email address

2. Proposed project

Discussion of how the proposed project would enhance a more major research application (or complement a funded project) is an important component of the application.

Format: do not exceed 3 pages in length for this section (≥ 0.5” margins, font equivalent to Arial 11pt), not including references or illustrations.

Include:

• Brief Background of what is known (or not known) about this topic

• Scientific Rationale and possible impact towards gaining insight into sex differences and/or the role of gender on the biology of the research focus, and/or on women’s health or sexual and gender minority health

• Specific Aims

• Timeline. [Note: the study should be completed within 10 months of funding (shorter timelines are encouraged) with the plan to apply this to an application (i.e. “Preliminary Studies”) to be submitted [or for a larger project to be initiated] within 18 months. Must include midterm milestones/goals which will be used to gauge whether progress is satisfactory for release of second payment. (Can include a presentation of preliminary findings at a scientific meeting.)

3. Description of Investigators and relevant experience should be presented separately (no page restrictions, but brevity is preferred), with a brief description of the nature or value of the collaboration for each investigator: First and Last Name, position, department: relevant experience and nature or value of the collaboration. Please do not submit NIH biosketches.

4. Budget Outline

Please submit a budget outline, indicating how you plan to spend the money, for: Personnel; Supplies; Other Direct Costs. Award start date: date of announcement of the award; end date: one year from announcement. Note: Funding can include support for post-doctoral fellows and research staff, as well as travel to present the seed grant data at a national meeting but will not include publishing costs or other travel.                            Budget guidelines are attached as Exhibit “A”.

Funding Guidelines:

WHSDM Seed Grants are supported by the Dean’s Office and the Department of Medicine. Thus, funds must be used for the identified project; if the project cannot be completed, remaining funds should be returned to the WHSDM Center. [Only one 1-year “no cost extension” can be requested.] University Administrative Guidelines (anchored in IRS/relevant authorities) must be followed. Generally, the funds are unrestricted.

Selection process

WHSDM Advisory Board members  with relevant expertise in the proposed research area (and no conflict of interest regarding awardees) will make up the review committee. Awards will be announced by Wednesday, October 30, 2024.

Phased payments: to receive the second half of the award, recipients must submit a midway report to the WHSDM Director on June 30, 2025, demonstrating satisfactory progress of the study towards an application or larger project to be initiated within 18 months of the initial award. Determination of satisfactory achievement will be based on evidence that the project will be completed as outlined in your proposal.

NOTE: WHSDM Director, Dr. Marcia Stefanick, and the WHSDM administrative staff will offer assistance in the development of an application to the funding agency for the larger project, including coordination of pre-proposal discussions and planning activities, referral to appropriate resources, and consultation within their area of expertise and experience, if appropriate.

Acknowledging WHSDM seed grant support in publications: We ask seed funding recipients to state in all

publications that were supported in whole or part by a WHSDM seed grant with a statement such as “this work was funded (or funded in part) by funds from the Stanford School of Medicine Women’s Health and Sex Diversity in Medicine Center (WHSDM).”

Questions? Contact Person: TO Preising, WHSDM Assistant Director, Operations preising@stanford.edu

Exhibit A  

Budget Guidelines                                                                                                                                                

The budget should be reflective of the costs necessary to accomplish the scope of work described in the application. At the time of award, a PDRF will be initiated by SPRC and will route to the PI for approval. While the funding will reside in SPRC, an individual award will be set-up for each funded project.

The total award amount cannot exceed $22,000 (direct costs only). The project period is one year beginning in January, 2025.

Allowable Direct Costs

1. Salaries including post docs and research staff and fringe. See DoR website for current rates: https://doresearch.stanford.edu/research-administration/proposal-and-award-lifecycle/rates

2. Consultants

3. Materials & Supplies

          - general lab supplies/consumables                                                                                                                           - general office project supplies                                                                                                                                 - photo copying, printing, postage

4. Patient care costs / human subjects

5. Recruitment costs

6. Animal costs – purchase and per diem cage costs

7. Data storage costs

8. Domestic travel only to present seed grant data at a national scientific conference

Unallowable Costs

1. Publication costs

2. Travel for reasons other than noted above

3. Capital equipment (over $5K)

4. Equipment maintenance and repairs

5. Subcontractors

Requirements

For each grant proposal, grantees must provide:

(i) a project budget, and

(ii) a corresponding budget narrative that clearly outlines and defines the project costs.

For questions regarding the budget, please contact:

Young Lee, SPRC Finance and Grants Specialist, at youalee@stanford.edu