Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation - Past Awardees and Events

George and Judy Marcus Awards
Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation
2018 Awardees

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation is pleased to announce the results of the 2018 call for innovative collaborative project proposals for the Seeding Bold Ideas and Transformative Integrated Research Initiatives. We received a total of 39 excellent and potentially transformative trans-disciplinary research proposals from faculty across UCSF. 17 cross-disciplinary teams submitted proposals to the Seeding Bold Ideas (SBI) Initiative and 22 teams submitted to the Transformative Integrated Research (TIR) Initiative.

A committee of researchers representing basic, clinical, computational health, and social/behavioral sciences reviewed, discussed, and selected 7 SBI projects and 4 TIR projects for funding.

The awardees for the Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation 2018 Seeding Bold Ideas (SBI) Initiative are:

Team

Proposal Title

Eric Collisson, MD
Adam Renslo, PhD

Combination Therapy Targeting Autophagy and the MEK/ERK Pathway in Pancreatic Cancer

Hannah Glass, MD, CM, MAS
Adam Numis, MD
Elliott Sherr, MD, PhD

UCSF NSR-GENE (University of California, San Francisco Neonatal Seizure Registry, GEnetics of post-Neonatal Epilepsy)

Bo Huang, PhD
Trever Bivona, MD, PhD

Oncogenic signaling by intracellular kinase protein granules

R. Katie Kelley, MD
Lawrence Fong, MD, PhD
John Gordon, MD, PhD

Hepatitis B Virus-associated mechanisms of immune escape and resistance to immunotherapy in HCC

A. Hunter Shain, PhD
Sarah Arron, MD, PhD

Mutation burden of individual keratinocytes as a biomarker to predict squamous cell carcinoma

Joseph Shieh, MD, PhD
Aleksandar Rajkovic, MD, PhD

Essential Genes and Early Disease Diagnostics

Doris Wang, MD, PhD
Coralie deHemptinne, PhD

Using chronic brain implants to understand and enhance motor learning in Parkinson's disease

The awardees for the Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation 2018 Transformative Integrated Research (TIR) Initiative are:

Team

Proposal Title

Eric Collisson, MD
Jeroen Roose, PhD

Tailored, Real-­time Models of Rare Driver Mutations in Human Cancer

Robert Blelloch, MD, PhD
Lawrence Fong, MD
James Fraser, PhD

Suppression of exosome biogenesis as a means of overcoming resistance to immunocheckpoint inhibitors

Andrei Goga, MD, PhD
Sarah Knox, PhD
Patrick Ha, MD

Understanding Nerve-Tumor Cell Interactions in Oral Cancer Perineural Invasion and Metastasis

Jimmie Ye, PhD
Lindsey Criswell, MD, MPH, DSc
Jinoos Yazdany, MD, MPH

Single cell RNA and Protein Profiling to Monitor Lupus Flares and Response to Treatment

 


Important Marcus Awards FAQs:

Emeritus appointments are not eligible to serve as PIs.

Subcontracts: For the Transformative Integrated Research award – a subcontract cannot budget more than $75,000 of the $300,000 budget; For the Seeding Bold Initiatives award - only $15,000 can be used for non-UCSF budget lines.

F&A / Indirect costs are not allowed in the budget.

George and Judy Marcus Innovation Fund
Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation
MPPMI 2018 Call for Proposals

Program Overview

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI) seeks to fuel innovation in precision medicine by fostering creative, high risk, high impact team science projects anchored in basic science and extending into the precision medicine continuum toward improved patient outcomes.

Precision medicine aims to harness vast amounts of biological and biomedical data– from basic molecular research to clinical, environmental, socioeconomic and mobile lifestyle data – and use it to define biological processes and disease mechanisms, to understand why different individuals respond differently to treatments, and to help guide more precise, predictive and preventative medicine.

George and Judy Marcus have generously provided funds since 2016 to drive innovative and collaborative efforts between basic researchers and clinical or social/behavioral/implementation/population scientists, which are essential to making precision medicine a reality. The MPPMI will advance precision medicine at UCSF through events that actively motivate and foster collaborations, and through direct funding of innovative research projects and fostering of researcher collaboration.

Past Marcus Awardees and Events

Funding Innovation:

The MPPMI supports two award categories, Seeding Bold Ideas, and Transformative Integrated Research. Each category:

  • supports translational precision medicine research with a strong basic science core.
  • requires two or more co-PIs: at least one a basic scientist, and at least one a clinical, social/behavioral, implementation or population scientist; either existing or newly formed teams may apply.
  • seeks high-risk thinking or approaches that will likely yield explicit “deliverables” (including discovery that the idea was wrong) after one year.

In addition, we have introduced the Marcus Award Supplement for the MP-TIR awards. Eligible projects can receive additional funds to support projects that include a partnering social/behavioral, implementation or population scientist OR include a novel and substantive computational science element that ties the project and contributes to the development of the Information Commons or Knowledge Network.

Marcus Program Seeding Bold Ideas Award (MP-SBI)

  • Up to $75,000 for one year
  • SBI awards enable initial exploration of untested concepts or hypotheses with great potential impact

Marcus Program Transformative Integrated Research Award (MP-TIR)

  • Up to $300,000 for one year
  • TIR awards support new directions for established basic science-driven translational studies

Marcus Program Transformative Integrated Research Award Supplement (Marcus Award Supplement)

  • Up to $100,000 MP-TIR Supplement
  • To encourage inclusion of social/behavioral, implementation or population science, as well as novel computational science
    • Social/behavioral science: anthropology, family studies, psychology, social work, sociology, or other areas within behavioral science
    • Implementation science: research on methods to promote putting research findings into routine healthcare practice in clinical, organizational or policy contexts
    • Population science: Sitting at the intersection of medicine and public health, spanning basic and social sciences, Population studies examine the relationships between many health determinants and/or health outcomes in large populations. It sits at the intersection of medicine and public health, spanning basic and social sciences, enabling integrated research that encompasses virtually every domain of life and society
    • Computational science: rapidly growing multidisciplinary field that uses advanced computing capabilities and expertise to understand and solve complex biomedical problems

See MPPMI 2018 Call for Proposals for eligibility, proposal instructions, deadlines, criteria and selection process.

Fostering Collaborations:

To foster a pipeline of bold ideas and novel collaborations, the MPPMI will actively promote creative networking between researchers in basic science and clinical, social/behavioral, implementation or population sciences as well as computational science.

  • Written Progress Reports: At the end of each award period, teams will submit a brief progress report; reports will be collected as an annual MPPMI summary.
  • Annual Workshop: Awardee presentations mixed with networking opportunities (e.g., topical roundtables) will be held at the end of each award period to showcase progress and facilitate new collaborations.
  • Networking events: MPPMI will host 1-2 networking events to foster collaborations, e.g., speed-networking or collaboratory meet-ups

George and Judy Marcus Awards

Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation

2017 Awardees

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation is pleased to announce the results of the 2017 call for innovative collaborative project proposals for the Seeding Bold Ideas and Transformative Integrated Research Initiatives. We received a total of 42 excellent and potentially transformative trans-disciplinary research proposals from faculty across UCSF. 21 cross-disciplinary teams submitted proposals to the Seeding Bold Ideas (SBI) Initiative and 21 teams submitted to the Transformative Integrated Research (TIR) Initiative.

A committee of researchers representing basic, clinical, and social/behavioral sciences reviewed, discussed, and selected 7 SBI projects and 3 TIR projects for funding.

The awardees for the 2017 Seeding Bold Ideas (SBI) Initiative are:

Team

Proposal Title

Chloe Atreya, MD/PhD

Jean-Philippe Coppe, PhD

Kevan Shokat, PhD

Kinome-guided Targeted Therapy: Targeting Pro-Inflammatory Cascades in Patient-derived BRAF (V600E) Colorectal Cancer Xenografts

Stephanie A. Christenson, MD/MAS

Charles Langelier, MD/PhD

Prescott G. Woodruff, MD/PhD

Host/Pathogen Metagenomic Deep Sequencing for Precision Diagnosis of Acute Exacerbations of COPD

Tien Peng, MD

Stephanie A. Christenson, MD/MAS

Prescott G. Woodruff, MD/PhD

Single-cell Discovery Approach for Targeted Regenerative Therapy in Emphysema

Neil Shah, MD/PhD

Joseph DeRisi, PhD

Margaret Fang, MD

Ophir Klein, MD/PhD

Art Weiss, MD/PhD

The Molecular Medicine Consult Service: Bringing a Multidisciplinary Approach to Patients with Undiagnosed and Rare Diseases

Dean Sheppard, MD

Wendell Lim, PhD

Engineering Lymphocytes to Treat Tissue Fibrosis

Anthony Shum, MD

Scott Oakes, MD

Michael Waterfield, MD/PhD

Targeting ER Stress and the Unfolded Protein Response as Treatment for the COPA Syndrome

E. Alejandro Sweet-Cordero, MD

Jonathan Weissman, PhD

Enabling Functional Genomics and Precision Medicine in Pediatric Sarcomas Using Patient-derived Xenografts and Multiplexed Single-cell CRISPRi Screening

The awardees for the 2017 Transformative Integrated Research (TIR) Initiative are:

Team

Proposal Title

Charles Chiu, MD/PhD

Steve Miller, MD/PhD

Precision Diagnosis of Acute Infectious Diseases

Raymond Swanson, MD

Caroline Tanner, MD/PhD

Steven Finkbeiner, MD/PhD

Toward a Redox-Directed Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease: Integrating Environmental, Genomic, and Functional Data

Michael R. Wilson, MD/MAS

Joseph DeRisi, PhD

Samuel J. Pleasure, MD/PhD

Precision Diagnosis of Autoantibody Mediated Encephalitis

Annual Marcus Symposium

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI), in collaboration with the University Development and Alumni Relations, UCSF Precision Medicine Platform and the Research Development Office's Team Science for Research Innovation Program (TSRIP), is hosting the Annual Marcus Symposium to celebrate the completion of the 2016 cycle of the Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation Award. A selection of current awardees will give project updates and we will announce the 2017 cycle awardees at the event on Tuesday, April 18, 2017 from 3:00 – 6:00 pm on the Mission Bay Campus. For more information, please contact Page Sorensen.

George and Judy Marcus Awards

Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation

2017 Call for Proposals

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI) seeks to fuel innovation in precision medicine by fostering creative, high risk, high impact team science projects anchored in basic science and extending into the precision medicine continuum toward improved patient outcomes. See MPPMI Program Overview on the program website.

The MPPMI invites proposals for our 2017 funding in two award categories, Seeding Bold Ideas, and Transformative Integrated Research. Each category:

  • supports translational precision medicine research with a strong basic science core.
  • requires two or more co-PIs: at least one a basic scientist, and at least one a clinical, social/behavioral or population scientist; either existing or newly formed teams may apply.
  • seeks high-risk thinking or approaches that will likely yield explicit “deliverables” (including discovery that the idea was wrong) after one year.

Marcus Program Seeding Bold Ideas Award (MP-SBI)

  • Up to $75,000 for one year; eligible to compete for up to $400,000 in year two, if funds are available
  • SBI awards enable initial exploration of untested concepts or hypotheses with great potential impact
  • Up to four awards granted

Marcus Program Transformative Integrated Research Award (MP-TIR)

  • Up to $400,000 for one year; eligible to compete for up to $400,000 in year two, if funds are available
  • TIR awards support new directions for established basic science-driven translational studies
  • Up to three awards granted
    Submissions are closed; 2017 proposals are in review
    See MPPMI Call for Proposals (2017 attached) for eligibility, proposal instructions, deadlines, criteria and selection process.

    Call for Proposals Announced

    January 3, 2017

    Proposal Application Deadline

    February 21, 2017

    Announcement of Awards

    April 15, 2017 (target funding start-May 1)

    Project Timeline

    1 year

Marcus Mixer: A Networking Event for the Marcus Program (MPPMI)

To foster a pipeline of new ideas and novel collaborations, the Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI), in collaboration with the UCSF Precision Medicine Platform and the Research Development Office's Team Science for Research Innovation Program (TSRIP), is hosting a mixer to promote creative networking between scientists in basic research areas and those in clinical, social/behavioral or population research areas.

This event will take place on Thursday, October 13th, 2016 from 3:30-5:30pm on the Mission Bay Campus. The agenda includes an afternoon of innovation-sparking lightning talks followed by time to mingle and share bold ideas with colleagues. Learn more here.

George and Judy Marcus Awards

Inaugural Funding Cycle Awardees Announced!

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation is pleased to announce the results of the inaugural call for innovative collaborative project proposals for the Seeding Bold Ideas and Transformative Integrated Research Initiatives. We received a total of 45 outstanding, creative, and potentially transformative trans-disciplinary research proposals from 135 faculty across UCSF. 25 cross-disciplinary teams submitted proposals to the Seeding Bold Ideas (SBI) Initiative and 20 teams submitted to the Transformative Integrated Research (TIR) Initiative.

A committee of researchers representing basic, clinical, and social/behavioral sciences reviewed, discussed, and selected 8 SBI projects and 4 TIR projects for funding.

The awardees for the 2016 Seeding Bold Ideas (SBI) Initiative are:

Team

Proposal Title

Joaquin Anguera, PhD
Elysa Marco, MD
Adam Gazzaley, MD/PhD
Jyoti Mishra, PhD
Melina Uncapher, PhD

A Real-world, Real-time Mental Health Assessment

Mallar Bhattacharya, MD
Nirav Bhakta, MD
Adam Abate, PhD

Microfluidic droplet capture for gene expression analysis of airway smooth muscle in asthma

Trever Bivona, MD/PhD
James Fraser, PhD

Systematic transformation of disease-driving genetic mutations into druggable therapeutic targets

Lindsey Criswell, MD/MPH/DSc;
Alexander Marson, MD/PhD

Creating a precision medicine approach for treatment response and outcome in rheumatoid arthritis

John Fahy, MD/MSc
Stephen Lazarus, MD
Brett Elicker, MD
Travis Henry, MD

Image-based precision mucolytic treatment for asthma

Robert Judson, PhD
Maria Wei, MD/PhD
Dexter Hadley, MD/PhD

An Integrated Nevus Risk Assessment Tool: predictive potential of RNA profiling and serial imaging

Pui-Yan Kwok, MD/PhD
Joseph Shieh, MD/PhD

Genome-wide structural variation analysis by novel sequencing and mapping technologies

Peter Walter, PhD
Jonathan Weissman, PhD
Susanna Rosi, PhD
Mervyn Maze, MD
Trever Bivona, MD/PhD
Jason Gestwicki, PhD

Mapping and manipulating the proteostasis network in normal biology and disease

The awardees for the 2016 Transformative Integrated Research (TIR) Initiative are:

Team

Proposal Title

Trever Bivona, MD/PhD
Matt Thomson, PhD
Enhancing precision oncology via single-cell dissection of lung cancer pathogenesis and targeted therapy resistance
Joseph DeRisi, PhD
Samuel Pleasure, MD/PhD
Precision Diagnosis of Autoantibody Mediated Encephalitis
Nevan Krogan, PhD
Jennifer Grandis, MD

Identification of targetable signaling networks that mediate therapeutic resistance in head and neck cancer

 
Elliott Sherr, MD/PhD
Pratik Mukharjee, MD/PhD
Srikantan Nagarajan, PhD
Alma Burlingame, PhD
Deep endophenotyping in autism: Proteomics and Brain Imaging

Program Overview

The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI) seeks to fuel innovation in precision medicine by fostering creative, high risk, high impact team science projects anchored in basic science and extending into the precision medicine continuum toward improved patient outcomes.

Precision medicine aims to harness vast amounts of biological and biomedical data– from basic molecular research to clinical, environmental, socioeconomic and mobile lifestyle data – and use it to define biological processes and disease mechanisms, to understand why different individuals respond differently to treatments, and to help guide more precise, predictive and preventative medicine.

$4 million has been generously provided by George and Judy Marcus to drive innovative and collaborative efforts between basic researchers and clinical or social/behavioral/population scientists, which are essential to making precision medicine a reality. The MPPMI will advance precision medicine at UCSF through events that actively motivate and foster collaborations, and through direct funding of innovative research projects.

Funding Innovation:

The MPPMI invites proposals for funding in two award categories, Seeding Bold Ideas, and Transformative Integrated Research. Each category:

  • supports translational precision medicine research with a strong basic science core.
  • requires two or more co-PIs: at least one a basic scientist, and at least one a clinical, social/behavioral or population scientist; either existing or newly formed teams may apply.
  • seeks high-risk thinking or approaches that will likely yield explicit “deliverables” (including discovery that the idea was wrong) after one year.

Marcus Program Seeding Bold Ideas Award (MP-SBI)

  • Up to $75,000 for one year; eligible to compete for up to $400,000 in year two
  • SBI awards enable initial exploration of untested concepts or hypotheses with great potential impact

Marcus Program Transformative Integrated Research Award (MP-TIR)

  • Up to $400,000 for one year; eligible to compete for up to $400,000 in year two
  • TIR awards support new directions for established basic science-driven translational studies

(Funding Call: no longer accepting application for 2016)

See MPPMI Call for Proposals (2016 attached) for eligibility, proposal instructions, deadlines, criteria and selection process.


Fostering Collaborations:

To foster a pipeline of bold ideas and novel collaborations, the MPPMI will actively promote creative networking between researchers in basic science and clinical, social/behavioral or population sciences.

  • Written Progress Reports: At the end of each award period, teams will submit a brief progress report; reports will be collected as an annual MPPMI summary.
  • Annual Workshop: Awardee presentations mixed with networking opportunities (e.g., topical roundtables) will be held at the end of each award period to showcase progress and facilitate new collaborations.
  • Networking events: MPPMI will host 1-2 networking events to foster collaborations, e.g., speed-networking or collaboratory meet-ups;

Program Announced:

December 21, 2015

Program Informational events:

January 11 and 12, 2016

Proposal Application Deadline:

February 8, 2016

Announcement of Awards:

February 22, 2016

Project Timeline:

1 year, plus competition for year 2 funding