Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain

The Rita Allen Foundation and the American Pain Society announce the 2012 Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain. Request for applications is now open.

The RAF and APS announce the 2012 Award in Pain. The RAF and APS may award two grants in the amount of $50,000 annually, for a period of up to three years to those research proposals demonstrating the greatest merit and potential for success.

Candidates must have completed their training and provided persuasive evidence of distinguished achievement or extraordinary promise in basic science research in pain. Candidates should be in the early stages of their career with an appointment at faculty level. The entire award is to be allocated to projects specifically chosen by the recipient. Overhead is not supported.

Deadlines:

Applications may be submitted online and will be due by midnight February 1, 2012. Grant awards will be announced in April of 2012. Funds will be awarded for the initial 12 month grant period that will begin upon satisfactory execution of the grant agreement between the RAF and the grant recipient's institution. Applications will be reviewed by a Scientific Advisory Committee of APS and RAF. The committee will not provide a review of unsuccessful applications.

Research Topics:

Proposed research projects should be directed towards the molecular biology of pain and/or basic science topics related to the development of new analgesics for the management of pain due to terminal illness.

General Information

The application must include a written proposal in English of no more than seven pages including references, and a curriculum vitae including the candidate's address and telephone numbers. The candidate's application must include letters of support from five people acquainted with the candidate's research. At least two of the support letters should come from individuals outside of the candidate's institution. In addition, a letter from the appropriate administrators and the Department Chair or Institute Head is required and must demonstrate strong support for the candidate's proposed research and career development. The candidate will provide the email contact information for the individuals that support the candidate's proposed research. Each individual will be contacted by the online system requesting that their letters of support be uploaded directly into the candidate's application. The candidate should list current and pending research support from all sources.

Eligibility:

To be eligible for the Rita Allen Foundation Award in Pain the applicant:

Must demonstrate the strong support of the appropriate administrators and Department Chair or Institute Head
Should have been on a tenure track for no more than three years and support will be reconsidered if a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar is awarded tenure.
Must conduct the research and be appointed at an institution in the United States or Canada.

Grant Budget and Grantee Obligations:

Eligible grant expenses may include Principle Investigator salary but not institutional overhead.
Recipients are required to submit a 500 word annual progress report and a financial report to the RAF in accordance with the terms of the grant agreement.
Investigators are required to present an abstract presentation of the sponsored research at a future Annual Meeting of the APS.

The application program with detailed instructions is now open. Please visit : http://www.connect2conferences.com/aps4.

2011 Recipients

Edgar Romero-Sandoval, MD PhD
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
“Spinal Cord Mechanisms In The Resolution Of Postoperative Pain”

Yuan-Xiang Tao, PhD
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
“Discovery of A Large Native Non-Coding RNA And Its Involvement In Neuropathic Pain”

2010 Recipients

Diana Bautista, PhD
University of California Berkeley
“Molecular Mechanisms of Somatosensory Mechanotransduction”

Seena Ajit, PhD
Drexel University College of Medicine
“MicroRNA Regulation and Its Utility as Biomarkers in Neuropathic Pain”

2009 Recipients

Theodore J. Price, PhD
University of Arizona Medical School
"Translations Regulation as a Novel Paradigm for Understanding Nociceptor Sensitization and Developing Analgesic Targets"

Steven A. Prescott, MD, PhD
University of Pittsburgh
"Pain Processing by Neural Networks: A Critical Link between the Molecular and Perceptual Changes"