Pilot and Feasibility Program

Pilot and Feasibility Program PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The New York Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NYNORC) Pilot & Feasibility (PF) program provides support for basic and clinical research projects related to nutritional studies and obesity including its etiology and complications. Since its inception 40 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 nutrition and obesity, outside of their usual areas of research; 3) promulgate high-risk projects that expand the NYNORC’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 105 prior recipients, 76 are still in obesity/nutrition academic research, four are in teaching, and eight are in industry. In the past 10 years, 22 of the recipients have been early investigators and 7 have been established investigators. To date, these 29 P/F grantees have acquired 44 grants, funded by NIH (n=30), and nongovernment grants (n=14). The total annual direct costs for these 44 grants are nearly $10.9M. We consider this program to be among the most important elements of the NYNORC, and have taken steps to increase the resources available to it. For this renewal, we request a continued budget for this program of $100k per annum of NYNORC funds, and have obtained commitments from the Deans of Columbia and Einstein and Columbia University Irving Center Oncology for an additional $150k per annum. This $250k of annual funding will enable us to have 5 P&F grants active in any year (@ ~$50k per annum for two years provided adequate progress has been achieved in the first year). In addition, our closely integrated programs of the Berrie Center – Berrie Frontiers Fellows and Scholars – provides an additional $430k in per annum funding for programs focused on early stage fellows and faculty in the area of obesity, and allied metabolic disorders.