The Orphan Disease Center (ODC) of the Perelman School of Medicine is requesting applications from Penn and CHOP faculty for seed funding of $100,000 per award to evaluate the feasibility of establishing new Programs of Excellence (POEs) for rare disease research.

The goal of this Request for Application (RFA) is to provide faculty with resources that can be used in whatever way is most useful to further develop a new POE concept including but not limited to: hosting a symposium, hiring consultants, conducting pilot research studies, progressing existing research to a value inflection point to enhance potential biopharma collaboration, creation of critical research tools, etc. It is hoped that work done under the auspices of these pilot programs will better inform ODC leadership about the creation of new POEs.

Interested faculty should submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) to scharle@mail.med.upenn.edu by Wednesday, September 7, 2016. To learn more about this process and the LOI, visit http://www.med.upenn.edu/orphandisease/assets/user-content/documents/ODC%20POE%20RFA.pdf for details.

The Orphan Disease Center (ODC) also invites applicants to participate in the 2016 Million Dollar Bike Ride Pilot Grant Program. The program is now open and offering 28 different research grant opportunities focusing on 20 different rare diseases.  This program provides a one-year grant to support research related to a rare disease represented in the 2016 Million Dollar Bike Ride. Number of awards and dollar amounts vary per disease based on fundraising totals by each disease team. This RFA is open to the international community. All individuals holding a faculty-level appointment at an academic institution or a senior scientific position at a non-profit institution or foundation are eligible to respond to this RFA.

For details about this grant program, rare disease focus areas and how to apply, please visit the ODC website at http://www.med.upenn.edu/orphandisease/rare-disease-overview.html

Letters of Intent (LOIs) are due no later than Friday, September 16, 2016 by 8 p.m.

Please contact Samantha Charleston at scharle@mail.med.upenn.edu or (215) 573-6822 with any questions.