2019 Gund-Harrington Scholar Award

2019 Gund-Harrington Scholar Award
Request for Proposals
Letter of Intent Deadline: October 12, 2018
Full Application Deadline: January 18, 2019

The Gund-Harrington Scholar Award supports innovative research efforts that could prevent, treat or cure blindness resulting from inherited retinal degenerative diseases. The Gund-Harrington Scholar Award is part of the Gund-Harrington Initiative for Fighting Blindness.

Multi-Level Support for Award Recipients Includes:

Funding totaling up to $900,000 over three years based on progress made towards milestones
Committed drug development and project management support through the Harrington Discovery Institute’s Innovation Support Center Innovation Support Center

team of pharmaceutical experts for the 3 year term

Dedicated pharma team provided for each scholar
Business and commercialization assessment
Clinical development strategy
Regulatory guidance
Intellectual property review and strategy
Access to contract research organizations/service providers

Award Criteria:

The competition is open to investigators at accredited academic medical centers, research institutions and universities in the U.S. and Canada
Applicants must have a PhD or MD degree (or equivalent) and demonstrate exceptional promise.
Multidisciplinary investigators outside the field of retinal disease developing a therapeutic strategy with a potential to benefit inherited retinal degenerative diseases are particularly encouraged to apply.
Of particular interest is the targeting of pathways and processes that might affect inherited retinal dystrophies and vision, with the ultimate goal of advancing the translation of research programs into therapies for the prevention and treatment of these diseases. In most cases, device development is not supported.

Areas of interest include:

Inherited retinal degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa, Leber’s congential amaurosis, cone dystrophies, and juvenile macular dystrophies like Stargardt or Best disease, choroideremia, and retinoschisis. In general, inherited retinal degenerative diseases that impact photoreceptors or RPE primaril
Targeting of pathways and processes that might affect retinal dystrophies and vision, with the ultimate goal of advancing the translation of research programs into therapies for the prevention and treatment of these diseases
Therapies based on novel target
Treatment strategies that are not gene specific, but may be broadly applicable across many patients such as therapies that may be effective for later stages of diseas
Therapies that address juvenile macular degeneratio
Regenerative medicine therapies that focus on stem cells differentiated into photoreceptor cells or precursor
Therapies developing gene delivery vectors or gene modifying strategies that can be used as a general platform to target specific retinal cell types, deliver/correct genes with large coding regions, specifically target outer retinal cells or impact cells across the entire retinal area

Application Submission:

Interested applicants are required to submit a Letter of Intent and CV no later than midnight EST on October 12, 2018.
Selected applicants will then be invited to submit a full application. Final applications are due by midnight EST on January 18, 2019.

Submission Process

Submission are accepted online using the "Go to application page" button.

Submission Instructions

Please submit your application through HarringtonDiscovery.SmartSimple.com.
Click “Register Here” button and complete applicant registration and log in to your account. If you are a past applicant, click “Forgot Password” to be emailed a temporary password.
When you have logged in, click “My Profile” to input or update your contact information.
Click the “Home” button to return to the homepage, and click on the “Apply Now” button to complete and submit your Letter of Intent.

Letter of Intent Outline

Stage of Development
Primary Therapeutic Area, Primary Disease Focus, and Therapeutic Modality
Project Title
Abstract (Public) - Provide a non-confidential summary of the project including unmet medical need, disease mechanism, target pathway, proposed research, and validation. (max 250 words)
Proposed Research Plan – Briefly describe the overall goal(s) and proposed milestones for your research. Make sure to include clear deliverables, go/no-go decision points and timelines for each. (max 250 words)
Intellectual Property (IP) – List relevant issued patents or published patent applications. Please mention if the IP is owned by you/your institution or co-owned with other institution(s) or for-profit third party. Please include links to relevant issued patents or published patent applications. (max 250 words)
Industry Relationships – Identify previous, active or pending industry relationships associated with the proposed project, or who hold rights to technology needed to conduct the proposed work (max 250 words)
Key Supporting Data (optional) – Upload no more than 3 pages of key data that supports your proposal. (3 page limit, PDF only) o We encourage you to provide your most compelling data with regard to validation of your therapeutic intervention strategy and most advanced lead
References (optional) – Upload no more than one page of references. (1 page limit, PDF only
Biosketch – Upload biosketch in NIH format for the Principal Investigator. (PDF only)

No budget is required at this time

Confidentiality

Members of the Foundation Fighting Blindness and Harrington Discovery Institute review panels and Scientific Advisory Boards complete mutual Confidentiality & Disclosure Agreements to protect confidential applicant submissions.

Non-public applicant information is always kept confidential (and limited in distribution to the reviewers and Harrington Discovery Institute and Foundation Fighting Blindness administrative teams). The abstract summary, including the applicant’s name and institutional affiliation, for those selected as Gund-Harrington Scholars, may be used by Harrington Discovery Institute for publicity and marketing purposes (on the Harrington Discovery Institute website, news releases, etc.) at Harrington Discovery Institute's sole discretion.

Applicants acknowledge that University Hospitals Health System may conduct research that is related to or competitive with proposals submitted by applicants, but University Hospitals Health System commits not to use information submitted by applications in connection with such research.

Intellectual Property

Harrington Discovery Institute does not claim rights to patents on discoveries, copyrights or trademarks to other intellectual property created as a result of work sponsored by Gund-Harrington Scholar Awards (“Intellectual Property”). On all aspects of Intellectual Property, Principal Investigators are encouraged to confer with their technology transfer office and/or office of sponsored programs for guidance. Awardees should take measures to ensure protection of any Intellectual Property, if appropriate, and then are required to make prompt disclosure of discoveries to the public.

Scientific research depends on the free flow of information and ideas. A data sharing plan is not requested or required in the application. However, in its annual evaluation of progress as outlined in the Scientific Reporting & Review of Progress section below, Gund-Harrington Initiative will consider, as part of the criteria for continued funding, adequate progress in sharing unique research resources developed with funds from the Award, as well as a demonstrated willingness to make research resources developed during the project widely available to the research community. See National Institutes of Health (NIH) data sharing policy for further information.

For more information visit HarringtonDiscovery.org/Gund or Blindness.org/apply-for-funding

For questions, please contact HDIQuestions@HarringtonDiscovery.org

Related link: www.researchgate.net