In order to promote liver disease related research at KUMC, the Phase III COBRE proposes to institute an annual Pilot Grants Program. The goals of this Pilot Grants Program are to support the career development of new investigators, allow established investigators to enter a new field, and promote collaborative interactions among the faculty. The topics supported will cover the broad area of liver diseases including basic, translational and clinical investigation. To achieve these goals we propose three specific aims: 1. To establish a Pilot Grants Program to fund promising new investigators in the area of liver disease research. 2. To have the Pilot Grants Program serve as a means to enhance communication and increase collaboration within the liver research community, between basic and clinical investigators, and between KUMC and KU Lawrence investigators, and 3. To assess the impact of the Pilot Grants Program on the grant recipients and the Liver Research Community at KU, and to use this information to modify and improve the program. We will further use this information to improve the Pilot Grants Program through a process of re-evaluation of practices and program modification. Our plan will be to award three $40,000 grants in the first year and then a combination of new and second year grants eventually for a total of five awards per year. We will introduce several innovative aspects of this Pilot Grants Program including an annual symposium in which the applicants propose their research to the broader liver research community, and an evaluation process in which the impact of the Pilot Grants Program on career development will be assessed. This program is expected to help grow the critical mass in NIH-funded liver disease research and position us to successfully compete for center funding at the completion of this award period.
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