The Special Strategic Projects program facilitates and supports cross-institutional research collaborations, donor proposal development, supporting campus-wide initiatives such as the Precision Medicine Initiative, and outreach activities with other research development and research administration partners within UCSF, UC and across the nation.
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Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Resources
Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovations
Noyce Initiative - UCSF Initiative for Digital Transformation in Computational Biology and Health Data Science
COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Grant Initiative
Tri-Institutional Partnership in Microbiome Research
Contact
Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H) Resources
A new federal funding agency - the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) – was created to speed medical breakthroughs to patients who urgently need them. ARPA-H is focused on a bold mission to advance high-potential, high-impact biomedical and health research that cannot be readily accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity. ARPA-H will make big bets to build high-payoff capabilities or platforms to drive biomedical breakthroughs – ranging from molecular to societal – that will provide transformative solutions for all individuals. ARPA-H will be looking for projects that are transformational, driving biomedical breakthroughs. They will not support incremental research efforts. They seek to support "Imagine if..." projects.
Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation
The RDO is excited to announce the 5thMarcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation (MPPMI) which seeks to fuel innovation in precision medicine by fostering creative, high risk, high impact team science projects supporting the precision medicine continuum. 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. MPPMI invites proposals for our 2022 funding in four award categories, Seeding Bold Ideas, Transformative Integrated Research, ELSI in Precision Medicine, and a brand-new IDEA award focused on equity and anti-racism. These relatively short proposals are due Tuesday, November 29, 2022. See the full 2022 RFA here.
George and Judy Marcus has generously provided funding 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. 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. The Marcus Program in Precision Medicine Innovation will advance precision medicine at UCSF through events that actively motivate and foster collaborations, and through direct funding of innovative research projects.
Check out this article about the impact of the Marcus Program: Marcus Awards Funds Bold Ideas, Transformative Collaborations, and Innovative Social Research
Recipients are listed here: 2017 - 2018 - 2019 - 2020 - 2022
Noyce Initiative - UCSF Initiative for Digital Transformation in Computational Biology and Health Data Science
It is with great excitement that we announce a new Noyce Initiative - UCSF Initiative for Digital Transformation in Computational Biology and Health Data Science. Data are being amassed at unprecedented levels across the health and biomedical sciences, with profound implications for gaining a deep understanding of basic biology and human health. This new initiative seeks to foster computational excellence at UCSF at all levels, with a broad range of activities from innovative curricular development, to recruiting and funding computationally-oriented predoctoral and postdoctoral learners, to funding innovative computational projects with substantial translational potential.
The Noyce Initiative has already contributed to the recruitment of 35 computationally-focused predoctoral scholars across graduate programs who will join us in the fall! Today we are announcing the next stage of the Initiative for Digital Transformation, a call for applications for Computational Innovator Awards and Fellowships. These awards are targeted towards using computational innovation to understand the root causes of diseases and health, to predict and prevent disease, to transform diagnostics, and to develop better treatments.
This new Noyce Initiative - UCSF Initiative for Digital Transformation is directed by Ryan Hernandez, with a strong leadership team representing a broad range of the computational landscape across UCSF: Atul Butte, June Chan, Hal Collard, Michael Keiser, Raman Khanna, Gretchen Kiser, Katherine Pollard, Angela Rizk-Jackson, Jason Solle and Bob Wachter.
There is an urgent need for computational innovation in all of these areas, and that is matched by this rapid funding mechanism, which seeks to receive and fund applications this fall.
Please see the 2021 RFA here for details.
Click here for the 2022 RFA and for the Budget Template
Please see useful FAQs here.
COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Grant Initiative
In March and April, the RDO partnered with the UCSF Academic Senate, UC National Laboratory Fees Research Program (LFRP) Block Grant through UCOP, UCSF-Gladstone Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), and the Chancellor’s COVID-19 Response Fund to develop, manage a funding competition and award funds for the COVID-19 Rapid Response Pilot Grant Initiative. The program offered two tiers: $5000 and $40,000, both for one-year projects. Initiative proposals were due on April 21st and we received 15 proposals to the Tier 1 ($5000) and 60 proposals to the Tier 2 ($40,000) initiatives. These received expert scientific review and discussion. The review committee delivered scores and comments as well as a slate of 10 proposals in each tier recommended for funding. The directors of the funding entities met and made funding decisions based on these recommendations, their agency priorities and available funding. Note that even more proposals were funded than the program originally had funding to support. Specifically, CFAR was able to support additional HIV-associated COVID-19 projects, and the RDO sought additional funding from the Chancellor to fund two additional $40,000 proposals. Collaboratively, we were able to award over $485,000 for 10 Tier 5K and 11 Tier 40K proposals.
See the full RFA here.
Recipients are listed here.
Tri-Institutional Partnership in Microbiome Research
A new partnership between UC San Francisco (UCSF), UC Davis (UCD), and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), formed to encourage research collaboration focused broadly on understanding microbiomes. The aim of the initiative is to catalyze bold, synergistic, and potentially transformative collaborative research through joint seed grants and position the institutions favorably for follow-on extramural funding.
See the full RFA here.
Recipients are listed here.
Contact
Gretchen Kiser
[email protected]
[email protected]