Merkin Innovation Seed Grants

We invite proposals for the next round of Merkin Innovation Seed Grants to fund projects of up to $100K each. These awards provide early support for translational projects, emphasizing partnerships between Caltech labs and clinicians, who will typically be from outside Caltech. Projects developed from the Bob Grubbs Medical Innovation Symposia are encouraged, but projects and clinical partnerships developed in other ways are equally welcome.

Submission Deadline: Wednesday May 31, 2023.

If awarded, funding will go directly to the lab of the Caltech PI(s) to perform feasibility studies that validate the potential healthcare innovation and position them for additional internal or external grant funding or for commercialization. Application instructions are outlined below.

Eligibility:

• The program is open to all Caltech Professors and Research Professors as lead PIs. 
• Multiple-faculty projects are welcome, but you must identify a lead PI for grant purposes.
• Lead PIs previously funded by the Merkin Institute are eligible if an end-of-grant summary has been submitted for completed project(s).
• Lead PIs with an active Merkin grant or no-cost extension (for either Translational Research or Innovation Seed) must address the relationship of current funding to the application.
• Research requiring IRB, IACUC, IBC approvals or MTAs can commence only after the approvals (or exemptions, as applicable) are obtained.

Please direct inquiries to Dr. Dan Schwartz (Merkin Physician in Residence) dschwart@caltech.edu and/or Dr. George Tolomiczenko (Merkin Exec. Director) gtolomic@caltech.edu.

Grant application format:

1. Biomedical problem and projected impact. Define the clinical problem your project addresses and discuss its importance, including the unsolved clinical need, prevalence, and current solutions. Describe the advantages of your solution relative to current standard of care and/or to any competing approach under development. If applicable, outline the potential for generalizing to other diseases, clinical settings, etc.
2. Approach. Give specific aims, pertinent preliminary data and outline how you plan to use the award to establish proof of concept. Include milestones linked to a projected timeline.
3. Team. Describe the team, identifying the research/engineering and clinical components and how they will interact. Give any plan for matching funds from the clinical partner or other source, if they are needed.
4. Beyond the seed grant: Briefly outline your plan to move the project forward after the seed award.

Parts 1-4 combined (up to three pages - not including references or figures).

Criteria for selection include:

• Overall scientific strength of the project.
• Anticipated translational impact.
• The team and the nature of the link with clinicians and clinical science partners.
• Adequacy of additional funds – if needed – including from the partner institution or other sources.
• The current path and vision to achieve translation into the clinic or other appropriate venue.

Proposal submission:

The Caltech PI should attach the proposal (in pdf format) to an email and send it to this Box address: MIS_Spr.f9tzy2p15ka24i5m@u.box.com This will automatically deposit the attached proposal in the submission folder. You will receive an automated confirmation of receipt. In the event that you do not receive the expected automated confirmation, report that failure in an email George Tolomiczenko (gtolomic@caltech.edu), attaching your application pdf to the message.

Name your attached proposal file as follows: MIS_SubN_ Last Name_First Name. For example, the second (corrected or updated) proposal submitted from Zeppo Marx would be named "MIS_Sub2_Marx_Zeppo" His first submission would have been "MIS_Sub1_Marx_Zeppo"