The role of the Pilot Research Project Core (PRPC) will be to oversee and help develop pilot projects that bring new investigators into the Yale/NIDA Neuroproteomics Center, help encourage young investigators working in our Center's laboratories to embark on careers in substance abuse research, disseminate the Center's core technologies to researchers investigating the neurobiology of addiction who are not yet using neuroproteomics technologies, and expand the technical abilities of the Center. The Center has greatly expanded the pool of researchers using proteomic methods at Yale and 12 other institutions, and has become a national resource for proteomic studies of biological aspects of drug addiction. The Center has been an engine for optimizing and teaching about how to use these methods to study addiction. The PRPC will solicit applications that propose to either apply existing technologies available from the Cores or to develop new technologies. Applications will be accepted from four applicant types: 1) Center investigators and 2) their Postdoctoral Fellows and higher level research staff who will need mentoring from their own PI's, as well as extensive training from Center Core staff; 3) non-Center investigators expert in substance abuse with interests in initiating research in neuroproteomics who also will need proteomics training and 4) non-Center investigators with expertise in cellular and molecular aspects of neuronal signaling with interests in initiating neuroproteomics research who can learn from Center PIs and Core staff about how to apply their molecular expertise to problems related to drugs of abuse. Pilot projects supported during the most recent funding period have resulted in 15 high quality publications, contributed to the success of 15 grants and awards, and helped further the careers of the awardees. We will build on this success and solicit new pilot proposals via our web site, emails, and word of mouth. Proposals will be competitively reviewed by a committee that will include the Center PI's, the PI of the Pilot Core, and members of the Internal and External Advisory Boards. All funded pilots will be monitored by the Core and Center PIs, and will involve training and guidance by the relevant Center Core directors, and in the case of awards going to more junior investigators, by the respective Center PI. Using similar criteria to current successful pilots, the submitted pilot proposals will be evaluated based on whether they meet the core mission of the program (bringing new senior PIs into the Center or funding junior investigators to perform innovative studies using Center technologies and bringing cutting edge proteomics technologies to bear on studies of drug addiction), as well as on their overall scientific merit. In the current proposal, we have included four examples of potential projects, including two that fit the criteria for Technology Development Pilot Research Projects, which together with 7 other proposals would be submitted for competitive review if the current renewal is funded.
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