2019 Call for Proposals
Marcus ELSI in Precision Medicine applicants:
We have made a change in the allowable budget criteria for the Marcus ELSI grant only. It is now allowed for 50% of the total grant budget ($75,000) to be applied to PI salary.
Please contact Gretchen Kiser at [email protected] if you have any questions.
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; for ELSI in Precision Medicine - only $30,000 can be used.
F&A / Indirect costs are not allowed in the budget.
Research Series Appointments are not eligible for a PI role on a Marcus award. Research Series Appointments are academic not faculty appointments.
George and Judy Marcus Innovation Fund
Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation
2019 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/or 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. To make the practice of precision medicine a reality requires an innovative and complex collaborative efforts between the disciplines along the precision medicine continuum: basic science, 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.
For proposals to the Seeding Bold Ideas and Transformative Integrated Research mechanisms, projects:
- should support translational precision medicine research with a strong basic science core;
- require two or more PIs (multi-PIs): at least one a basic scientist, and at least one a clinical, social/behavioral, implementation, computational or population scientist; existing or newly formed teams are both eligible;
- should employ high-risk thinking and approaches that will likely yield explicit “deliverables” (including discovery that the idea was wrong) after one year; and
- are encouraged to employ population health and health equity strategies or to integrate novel computational methods such as those that contribute to building the Information Commons or Knowledge Network.
In addition, with the complexities of new clinical and research technologies (e.g., gene-editing) and with novel use of personal health data (e.g., collectively, in the ‘knowledge network’), we are also now faced with new and unprecedented ethical, legal, social implication (ELSI), implementation, and policy matters. In order to fully realize the vision of Precision Medicine, innovative research addressing such social science issues is critical. To that end, we are offering a new grant mechanism within the Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI) – ELSI in Precision Medicine.
For the ELSI in Precision Medicine mechanism, projects
- should address an innovative ELSI, implementation or policy project, tethered deliberately to a precision medicine application (e.g., data stewardship and sharing, economics of precision medicine applications, precision medicine and health disparities, role of genetic exceptionalism in policy development, participant rights and engagement, etc.);
- require two or more PIs (multi-PIs);
- should employ high-risk thinking and approaches that will likely yield explicit “deliverables” (including discovery that the idea was wrong) after one year.
Award Amounts:
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
- Funding 4-6 proposals
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
- Funding 3-4 proposals
Marcus Program ELSI in Precision Medicine Award (MP-ELSI)
- Up to $150,000 for one year
- It is now allowed for 50% of the total grant budget ($75,000) to be applied to PI salary.
- ELSI awards support the development of necessary frameworks for ELSI, implementation, and policy aspects of precision medicine.
- Funding up to 2 proposals
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