FOEDRC announces pilot and feasibility grant recipients

The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center released the following announcement today.

The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center at The University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine, is pleased to announce the results of its ninth round of pilot and feasibility research grants. These grant awards fund innovative pilot projects by early career investigators who are entering the diabetes research field, or established investigators with innovative ideas that focus their research program in a new direction that addresses important questions in diabetes research. The goal of the program is to generate data that will enable awardees to compete for peer-reviewed national funding for projects that show exceptional promise. These pilot project research grants are supported by gifts from the Fraternal Order of Eagles, which now endow this grant program. This year we supported two types of applications. Catalyst awards fund pilot projects for up to two years as in prior years. New this year, were seed grants, which are small awards designed to support specific experiments that are required to provide critical preliminary data that would enable investigators to submit or re-submit grant proposals in the relative near- term. A total of 29 researchers from across the UI campus submitted meritorious proposals that underwent a comprehensive two-stage review.  The review panel had a challenging time to identify proposals for funding from such a competitive field. Two applicants were selected to receive a catalyst award grant of $50,000 to support their research proposal, with the possibility for a second year of funding, for a total of $100,000 over a two-year period. Three applicants were selected to receive a seed award grant of $6,500 to support critical experiments.

Congratulations to all of our 2019-2020 FOEDRC Pilot & Feasibility Grant Award Recipients!

Deniz Atasoy, PhD 
Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology

Project title: “Identifying the defective feeding pathways in hypoglycemia unawareness”
$50,000

Huxing Cui, PhD 
Assistant Professor
Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology

Project title: “Fine-mapping of pancreatic vagal circuit for systemic glucose homeostasis: the role of melanocortin signaling”
$50,000

M. Nedim N. Ince, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Internal Medicine – Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Project Title: “Single Cell Analysis of Adipose Tissue Regulatory T Cells”
$6,500

William I. Sivitz, MD
Emeritus Professor
Department of Internal Medicine – Endocrinology and Metabolism

Project Title: “13C labelled isotopomer analysis for assessment of flux through oxaloacetate”
$6,500

Ajit Vikram, PhD
Assistant Professor
Internal Medicine – Cardiovascular Medicine

Project Title: “Early-life dysbiosis reprograms metabolic disorders through circulating microRNA-122”
$6,500