The pilot and feasibility (P&F) grant program represents an extremely valuable and effective opportunity for the Vanderbilt O'Brien Kidney Center to provide funds for the support of kidney disease related projects. Funding for the P&F program started in 2002 during a previous funding cycle for the O'Brien centers (2002-2007) and continued through the P30 Vanderbilt O'Brien Kidney Center (2008-2013). For this competitive application, the goal of the program continues to be to support i) small research projects by new investigators with little or no independent research support; ii) established investigators who are turning to kidney-related research for the first time; or iii) established investigators in kidney related research who are undertaking a strikingly new research direction. Applicants must hold a faculty appointment (Instructor or above) to submit a P&F proposal, and must meet the NIH Eligibility Guidelines for P&F support. In our previous funding cycles (2002-2013), the Vanderbilt O'Brien Kidney Center funded 19 applications, from a total of 53 applications. Summaries of the funded applications are detailed below. For this application, we are requesting funding for 9 applications for years 2017-2022, all of which will meet the guidelines of our P&F program and will extensively utilize our proposed biomedical cores.
The pilot and feasibility (P&F) grant program represents an extremely valuable and effective opportunity for the Vanderbilt O'Brien Kidney Center (VOKC) to provide funds for the support of kidney disease related projects. We will support small research projects by new investigators with little or no independent research support who are turning to kidney-related research for the first time; support established investigators, primarily interested in models of kidney disease to undertake a strikingly new research direction; and allow investigators to conduct pilot studies using the facilities of the VOKC as well as the tools and reagents available through the Cores.
