Neurobiology Research Center Awards 7 Peer-Reviewed Pilot Grants

The University of Cincinnati (UC) Neurobiology Research Center and the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute recently awarded seven researchers with peer-reviewed pilot grants totaling $175,000. Awardees each receive a $25,000 grant toward their pilot research. 

"Our goal with these pilot grants is to advance neuroscience research efforts across the university,” says James Herman, PhD, Donald C. Harrison Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience and director of the UC Neurobiology Research Center (NRC). "Pilot grants not only foster collaboration across different disciplines to further thinking and research in the neurosciences, but also can lead to national funding of the research project.” 

Herman says that NRC grants funded in recent years have paired pharmacy researchers with the UC Brain Tumor Center, psychiatry with internal medicine, and neurology and environmental health, to name a few, and that these collaborations "can go on to be competitive for NIH funding, which is the ultimate goal.” 

In addition to the NRC, funding for these pilot awards comes from the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute, George J. and Elizabeth Wile Neuroscience Research Endowment, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and Meshawa Farms. 

"With each year, we continue to have a good translational emphasis,” adds Herman. "Of this year’s awards, three are clinical, three are basic science and one is truly translational (testing a possible new therapy for glioblastoma using preclinical approaches).”