Pilot Grants

5The Boston Area Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center

is now accepting

Pilot and Feasibility Research Grant Award Applications

For studies of Diabetes Mellitus and Its Complications

The Boston Area Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center (BADERC) is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Diseases (NIDDK) to support research in diabetes and its complications. The BADERC P&F program welcomes all proposals relevant to diabetes and its complications, from basic to translational to clinical. 

Research grants up to $50,000 over one year (with the possibility of a second year of equivalent funding via competing renewal demonstrating progress) will be awarded for meritorious proposals from candidates whose eligibility is defined by one or more of the following four criteria:

  1. Junior faculty without past or current NIH support to conduct diabetes research. Those with 100% committed research effort that precludes acceptance of additional federal funding effort are not eligible.
  2. Established non-diabetes researchers who have an innovative idea relevant to diabetes.
  3. Established diabetes investigators who have an innovative idea/approach relevant to diabetes that represents a distinct departure from their established lines of investigation.
  4. Investigators developing new research techniques/technologies that could be used in a BADERC Core.

The BADERC is committed to funding a diverse group of faculty for its Pilot and Feasibility Program. Individuals from backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine are strongly encouraged to apply.

Candidates must have a faculty-level appointment. Non-independent fellows are not eligible to apply. Co-PI’s are not allowed.

Letters of Intent are due at Noon, Wednesday, November 1st, 2023.

We will notify you if you are eligible to submit a full application by November 15, 2023

Full Applications will be due by 5pm, Friday December 15, 2023

If you qualify based on one of the four criteria listed above, please complete the BADERC P&F LOI form (To download the letter of intent form please follow this link). If your proposed research is deemed compatible with the goals of the BADERC, instructions for the preparation of a five-page application for a Pilot and Feasibility Research Grant Award will be forwarded to you. Funding for successful applications will begin approximately March 1, 2023.

Assemble the following documents in a single PDF document (in this order): (1) completed letter of Intent form (form found below), (2) an NIH-style biosketch, and (3) certified NIH-style OtherSupport page. Entitle the PDF “LastName_FirstName.PDF”, and send via email to: PRICEVUTO@MGB.ORG.

Questions may be directed to:

Alexander Soukas, M.D., Ph.D.                                             asoukas@mgh.harvard.edu

Associate Director, BADERC

Director, BADERC Pilot & Feasibility Award Program

185 Cambridge Street, CPZN6224                                        Tel. (617) 724-5897

Boston, MA 02114                                                                  Fax. (617) 326-2978

***Please post and forward to eligible individuals***

To review prior awardees , please follow this link.

The Boston Area Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center (BADERC) has administered a thriving Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) program over the past 22 years. Over the lifetime of the Center, the BADERC P&F program received 414 applications and has given 105 awards. These awardees have leveraged the P&F funding into a significant number of subsequent NIH grants: 63% of awardees have attained a subsequent, related NIH R01/U01/P01 grant as principal investigator, 12% have attained a K award, 25% have obtained ADA or JDRF funding as a principal investigator, and 24% have obtained other categories of NIH funding.

The BADERC P&F program’s has fostered numerous careers in diabetes-related research: 91% of P&F funded investigators remain in diabetes-related research. The most recent 10 years of  64 P&F projects have spawned 85 NIH R-level project grants or equivalent, conservatively estimated at more than $93,000,000 in direct dollars.

P&F Awardees over the past 10 years have published 231 peer-reviewed publications related to the P&F award in impactful journals including Cell, Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Metabolism, Cell Metabolism, JCI, JCI Insight, and Cell Reports. Papers coauthored by the 2009-2019 P&F awardees include 16 in Nature, 14 in Nature Medicine, 17 in Cell, 31 in Cell Metabolism, 5 in Science, 26 in PNAS, 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, 14 in JCI, and 4 in Nature Metabolism.

Last Updated on October 16, 2023