The Pilot Projects core of the Mount Sinai P30 Core Center provides funding for ?start-up? research projects targeting important and complex environmental health issues, particularly those that fit our transdisciplinary theme and will likely lead to NIH funding. Our Pilot Projects Core is supplemented with $100,000 of institutional funding annually, allowing us to increase the level of support we provide above that directly provided by this P30 grant. All applications are peer reviewed using NIH review criteria and scoring. Pilot grants are prioritized if 1) they are likely to lead to a larger extramural grant, 2) if they fit one of the themes of our 3 research groups, 3) if the PI is an Assistant Professor, 4) if the PI is a multi-PI grant with a postdoctoral fellow who pledges to use it for a K grant application and 5) if the pilot is a Community Based Participatory Research Project (CBPR). In the first 3 years, we distributed 19 pilot grants totaling ~$650,000 dollars, which should be placed in the context of our center having only between ~$530K-710K of direct costs to spend annually, demonstrating the high priority we placed on this program. In return, 4 pilots have already led to funded NIH applications totaling ~$19,000,000 in total direct costs (See Table e in ?other attachments?). The first 12 pilot grants awarded have already led to 10 NIH grant applications (8 assigned to NIEHS) with 4 funded. All 10 NIH applications arose from grants funded in years 1-2, as year 3 is too recent to evaluate. Our Pilot Projects Program has not only fueled a large number of new NIH grant applications, they have increased facility core usage and have been a strong vehicle for career development. Our program to support junior investigators applying for P30 pilot grants has been remarkably successful with 14 of 19 funded pilot grants going to Assistant Professors. Our Center's 3 Research groups (1. multiple exposures/mixtures, 2. social environment-chemical interactions and 3. sex specific effects) are designed to be transdisciplinary so that we can tackle the complex issues embedded in the NIEHS strategic vision. This has fueled a large number of new transdisciplinary pilot grant collaborations among Center faculty. Center members from multiple departments have been PIs including Genetics- (Dudley, Pandey), Neuroscience (Morishita), Pediatrics (Chu, Satlin), Endocrinology (Homann), Pulmonology (Lee), Biostatistics(Benn) and Psychiatry (Reichenberg). Most had never conducted environmental health research previously before receiving a P30 Pilot grant. Our CBPR funding set aside, implemented in year 2, has already yielded two funded pilots and generated 5 CBPR applications. This Pilot Project Core has created the support that helped catalyze our remarkable growth over the first 3 years of our center. We have clearly demonstrated our ability to leverage these grants for future NIH applications. Going forward, we will continue to supplement the pilot program with $100,000 in annual institutional support, and will increase its total outlay to $310,000 per year in pilot funding, ensuring that our Center continues to meet the needs of our research and engagement communities.
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