Pilot and Feasibility Program

Pilot and Feasibility Program PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center Pilot & Feasibility (PF) program provides support for basic and clinical research projects related to obesity, its etiology and complications. Since its inception 35 years ago, this program has been used successfully to 1. attract and underwrite young investigators who wish to undertake a career in obesity; 2. encourage established investigators proposing work related to obesity, outside of their usual areas of research; 3. promulgate high-risk projects that expand the NYONRC's reach into new areas of bioscience deemed likely to have relevance to aspects of our mission; 4. promote collaborative research projects among Center members and the Cores. Of the 90 prior recipients, 66 are still in obesity/nutrition academic research, four are in teaching, and seven are in industry. In the past 10 years, 21 of the recipients have been early investigators and 2 have been established investigators. To date, these 23 P/F grantees have acquired 25 grants, funded by NIH (n=16), and private foundations (n=9). The total annual direct costs for these 25 grants are nearly $3.4 M. We consider this program to be among the most important elements of the Center, and have take steps to increase the resources available to it. For this renewal we have, therefore, increased the requested budget for this program to $100k per annum of Center funds, and obtained commitments from the Deans of Columbia and Einstein for an additional $125k per annum. This $225k of annual funding will enable us to have 4-5 P&F grants (@ ~$45k per annum) active in any year. In addition, our closely integrated programs of the Berrie Center ? Berrie Frontiers Fellows and Scholars ? brings an additional $430k in per annum funding for programs focused on early stage fellows and faculty in the area of obesity, diabetes and allied metabolic disorders.