(Pilot Core) The overarching goal of the Center to Accelerate Population Research in Alzheimer?s (CAPRA) is to serve as a national resource to promote and accelerate multidisciplinary research that informs the actions governments, healthcare systems and providers can take to reduce the social, economic, and health burden of AD/ADRD. The Pilot Core will serve a central role for achieving that goal by providing funding, resources, and networking for investigators doing pilot studies in CAPRA?s thematic research areas. Pilot studies provide opportunities to test promising hypotheses, stimulate investigator collaborations, and generate preliminary data for new grants. But their small scale and short timeline can make it difficult to efficiently complete and to transition to full-scale studies. To reduce barriers to entry for Alzheimer?s population and healthcare research, the Pilot Core is designed to provide not only funding for pilots but also access to expertise, methods and in some cases data to ensure success. We will solicit and select pilot studies from a diverse set of investigators that fit CAPRA?s themes and have the best chance to develop into externally funded research projects and be most influential for understanding and treating Alzheimer?s disease and related dementias in population health.
We aim to solicit pilot studies across many disciplines, including established investigators transitioning into AD/ADRD research. We will solicit pilot studies not only from the University of Michigan, but also from the broader research community around the country. The solicitation strategy will access existing networks, such as Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research, National Clinical Scholars programs, and other collaborative groups with whom the CAPRA leadership and affiliates work. CAPRA will not merely fund promising pilot studies, the Pilot Study Investigators will become an integral part of CAPRA. They will participate in other CAPRA activities, creating a wider network of dementia research collaborators, and also receive ongoing mentorship through the process of writing full R01 grant proposals. We will leverage data, methods, and experience across all CAPRA collaborators to enhance the science and potential influence of their research. We will achieve this through mentoring, seminars, and grant-writing workshops. Ultimately, our goal is to bring talented researchers from many disciplines into Alzheimer?s research and seek innovative collaborative solutions.
