Southern California Research Center for ALPD and Cirrhosis

PILOT PROJECT CORE - SUMMARY The center’s Pilot Project Core represents the most critical mechanism to promote new and innovative investigational endeavors by young and established scientists. It fosters a transition of senior postdocs and early-stage investigators to the pathway to independence in their chosen research topics related to the center’s theme. Indeed, since the center’s inception in 1999, the Pilot Project Core has been responsible for the emergence of the 2nd and 3rd generations of scientists who now lead the center program. It also supports new leading-edge studies by established investigators who wish to extend their expertise to ALPD and cirrhosis via collaboration with the center investigators and/or support from the center’s scientific cores. During the past 5 years, the Core received 34 annual pilot project applications of which 19 were funded with total direct costs of $360,000 for 14 investigators. Of these, 7 acquired NIH (5 R01s, 1 U01, 1 K23) grants plus 1 DOD grant totaling $8 million direct costs plus $1.9 million foundation or institutional awards. Six of these 7 awardees are early career Investigators and two other pilot project awardees have pending R01 and R21 applications. Pilot project investigators published total 34 manuscripts. Further, a USC MD/PhD student, who has been working on a pilot project under his mentor, has recently received a F30 fellowship award, demonstrating the Pilot Project Program not only supported early-career investigators but also a pre-doctoral training. These outcomes were strategically supported by chargeback fee-free services by the center’s technical cores offered to funded projects. In the next funding cycle, the Core will continue to promote the generation of young and established scientists who will advance new basic, translational, and clinical science in the field of ALPD and cirrhosis. Toward this goal, the Core pursues the following five specific aims: 1) to identify and recruit new and qualified senior postdocs and young scientists into ALPD and cirrhosis research and support their transition to academic independence; 2) to identify and recruit established investigators with proven expertise in other fields into research relevant to the center’s theme and support their acquisition of new federal grants; 3) To promote unique collaborative projects on selective high-impact topics by uniting the center investigators’ expertise and shared interest; and 4) to integrate the center’s other supportive mechanisms such as institutional cost share, core services and educational and training programs to maximize the potential of pilot projects to mature as competitive studies.