Two University of Utah researchers on Monday were awarded prestigious grants from the National Institutes of Health to launch groundbreaking biomedical research projects.
Adam Frost, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry, and Ryan O'Connell, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pathology, were selected to receive the NIH Director's New Innovator Award from a competitive, national field of researchers.
The awards are part of the agency's "High Risk-High Reward Research Awards."
Seventy-eight grants, including those given to Frost and O'Connell, were awarded to scientists proposing highly innovative approaches to major contemporary challenges in biomedical research. The grants are supported by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund.
"NIH is excited to continue support of visionary investigators, among all career stages, pursuing science with the potential to transform scientific fields and accelerate the translation of scientific research into improved health, through the Common Fund's High Risk-High Reward Research Program. This Program allows researchers to propose highly creative research projects across a broad range of biomedical research areas, that involve inherent risk, but have the potential for high-rewards," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., and Ph.D, in a statement released by the NIH.
The New Innovator Award program is an initiative established in 2007. It supports investigators who are within 10 years of their terminal degree or clinical residency, but who have not yet received a Research Project Grant (R01) or equivalent NIH grant, to conduct exceptionally innovative research, according to the NIH.
Award recipients will attend the 2013 High Risk-High Reward Research Symposium in Maryland from Nov.18 to 21, where they will exchange ideas with other scientists through presentations, poster sessions, and networking opportunities.
To learn more about the awards, read the NIH news release here.