Pilot Research Projects
2018 Pilot Project Applications
The Yerkes National Primate Research Center is seeking proposals for new Pilot Research projects that will be funded from the upcoming year of the center's P51 base grant. We expect to make two to three awards.
These Pilot Research awards will provide one year of support for up to $70,000 in direct costs. Although the awards are open to all investigators, the NIH Office of Research Infrastructure (ORIP) guidelines require the direct involvement of a Yerkes Core Scientist.
We especially encourage applications from early career investigators and applications that propose translational research projects.
The projects will be judged on their potential to generate high-impact preliminary data that will result in peer-reviewed, research project grants from outside sources, and on how well they meet the five major review criteria per the ORIP NPRC and the NIH Office of Extramural Research guidelines, specifically Significance, Approach, Innovation, Investigator and Environment.
Proposals, which should be submitted as a single PDF, are due Thursday, February 8, 2018, by 5 pm Eastern. Late applications will not be accepted.
More information is available at the link on the right. Contact Dr. Thomas Wichmann, Yerkes Associate Director for Scientific Programs, if you have more questions.
Yerkes NPRC Selects 2017 Pilot Projects
The following four projects were selected based on:
1) their potential to generate high-impact preliminary data that will result in peer-reviewed, research project grants from outside sources, and
2) their alignment with NIH and Yerkes goals
"Developing a genetic NHP model of social deficits of relevance for autism spectrum disorder (ASD)"
Lead researcher: Zsofia Kovacs-Balint, PhD
The researchers plan to use social behavioral data collected from more than 100 juveniles at the Yerkes Field Station to identify social phenotypes, including deficits of relevance for ASD, and to sequence genes of relevance for ASD in the animals to identify genetic variants that predict social deficits.
"Immune activation in an alpha-synuclein non-human primate model of Parkinson’s disease"
Lead researcher: Valerie Joers, PhD
The researchers will develop a viral vector-mediated overexpressing mutant Asyn monkey model to investigate the local inflammatory environment following Asyn-induced nigral cell death. Results from this study would provide a preclinical platform for Yerkes and other researchers to further assess first-in-class immunomodulatory and neuroprotective therapies for Parkinson's disease.
"Maternal consumption of a high-fat diet and obesity alter milk essential fatty acid profiles and impair infant neurodevelopment"
Lead researcher: Kelly Ethun, DVM, PhD
This project will seek to understand how maternal consumption of a typical American diet and diet-induced obesity can impair infant neurodevelopment via breastmilk.
"Mechanisms Underlying Unconventional Rhesus CMV Vector Immunogenicity"
Lead researcher: Edward Mocarski, PhD
The researchers plan to bring a new and novel vaccine vector into use at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in order to generate data that will support future studies on protection mechanisms as well as mechanisms leading to the novel response characteristics generated by the vaccine vector to induce protective immunity against Simian AIDS.
This pilot project is jointly funded by Yerkes and Emory's Center for AIDS Research.
Information about the new NIH Next Generation Researchers Initiative to strengthen the biomedical research enterprise is here.