Letter from the BWPO Chairman
Dear Colleagues:
Brigham and Women’s Hospital receives more grant funding from the National Institutes of Health than every free-standing hospital in the country except for one, our system partner, Massachusetts General Hospital. Last year alone, total BWH research expenditures accounted for approximately $485
million, with about $260 million in NIH funding.
Over many cycles of federal research expansion and contraction, Brigham researchers successfully dedicated themselves
to pursue every opportunity to advance science. One of the initial
funding programs of the BWH Biomedical Research Institute (BRI) that has helped many researchers overcome these challenges is the Fund to Sustain Research Excellence, a bridge-funding mechanism to help researchers close to receiving NIH funding, but not quite there yet. The program was established by Thomas S. Kupper MD, the first BRI director, and strongly supported by BWH President Gary Gottlieb MD, MBA, and Senior Vice President for Research Barbara Bierer, MD. With six cycles
of funding since 2007, more than 40 researchers received intramural grants totaling $2.7 million.
Among the successes, we can look to Elizabeth Klerman, MD, PhD,
of the Division of Sleep Medicine, and Jose R. Romero, PhD, in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Hypertension. Dr. Klerman sought BRI bridge funding while waiting for NIH to review three proposals. She received six months of funding from the BRI before she received a two-year NIH NHLBI ARRA grant of more than $1 million. For Dr. Romero, bridge funding enabled him to secure NIH RO1 funding from the NHLBI on one project for $1.2 million and see another scored
at an excellent level. Additionally, he received supplemental funding from the NHLBI to hire a post-baccalaureate student, Rodeler Youte, for 18 months and was awarded a faculty grant from Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.
Our most recent round of bridge funding drew only a few applicants,
in part because of successes in ARRA funding, and, in part, the initial
successes of the program. Many researchers who received awards from the Fund to Sustain Research Excellence have gone on to secure funding from the NIH or other outside sources evidenced by the fact that less than half of the recipients seek a second year of funding.
With such a vibrant research community and so many brilliant
scientists in our midst, the best news may be funding remains available
for 2010, too.