Scholar Awards

Provides support for career development of biochemically trained professionals who have made a commitment to patient-oriented research in the Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG) and who have the potential to develop into productive preclinical investigators.

A successful candidate must have a master of sciences and/or PhD professional doctoral degree.

The Frontiers in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation Consortium Career Development Award is a mentored award designed to provide individuals with intensive, supervised training in biomedical research related to CDG and to help them establish independent research in CDG. The award supports supervised research as part of the research career development for preclinical scientists to develop an impactful research project. The award is intended to help the candidate become competitive for additional research awards following their FCDGC Career Development Award period. Consequently, applicants should not already have a mentored K award or equivalent early-career awards. Priority will be given to applicants outside of the existing FCDGC network to support the goal of supporting and fostering investigators establishing new CDG research.

One FCDGC Career Development Award will be funded in 2021.

Support will be provided for a one-year period.

The FCDGC will provide up to $80,000 for research and salary, inclusive of appropriate fringe and indirect costs. We anticipate and recommend that the applicant ask for a waiver of indirect costs. In any case, no greater than 8% indirect costs are permitted.

Innovative, early-stage applications addressing key knowledge gaps that are without evidence of alternate means of independent funding are encouraged. Formal requirements include:

• The application must relate to one or more CDG disease(s).
• The application must include a pathway to additional funding or a subsequent career development award;
• The applicant must identify mentorship within the FCDGC but may also have co-mentorship outside the FCDGC if appropriate to the scientific goals and academic development of the applicant;
• The applicant must demonstrate willingness to collaborate with the FCDGC in a sustainable way.
• The applicant must be within 5 years of completion of last training;
• The applicant must describe methods that demonstrate adequate rigor and replication to translate the proposed research to future research projects.

The applicant must demonstrate IRB and /or IACUC, if applicable, approvals prior to award funding. IRB submissions must include approved language to share protected health information (PHI) with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Data Coordinating Center (CHOP DCC) and the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network Data Management and Coordinating Center (RDCRN DMCC) designated by the National Institutes of Health.

We encourage applicants to pay careful attention to specific issues that must be addressed in a statement of institutional support for the FCDGC Career Development Award. Please see ‘Eligibility Criteria’ above for more details.

Applications that include a plan to leverage FCDGC resources in one or more of the following ways will be prioritized:

• Use of existing FCDGC data on phenotype and longitudinal natural history.
• Use of existing FCDGC banked or prospectively collected biosamples.
• Interaction with an existing FCDGC investigators.
• Inclusion of an existing FCDGC advocacy partner (CDG CARE).

Standard reporting requirements include the following:

• A progress report will be expected at 6 months following award, and a final report will be expected at 12 months following award. Funds will be disbursed at the end of each 6-month reporting period.
• Publication in the form of an abstract at a national or international meeting or submission of a manuscript for publication is expected within 12 months of completion of the award.
• The awardee is expected to attend all FCDGC meetings during the award and the next FCDGC consortium meeting after completion of the award.
• As part of the FCDGC, data of the pilot award should be shared with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the RDCRN Data Management and Coordinating Center (DMCC).

It is the expectation that data will be submitted to the RDCRN Data Management and Coordinating Center (DMCC) and FCDGC Executive Committee as detailed in the ‘Reporting Requirements’ above.

The FCDGC Career Development Committee recommends the following application structure.

• Proposal (2-3 Pages): Background, Innovation, Approach (inc. Specific Aims, Preliminary Data and Methods), Project Timeline, and Future Directions;
• Career and Program Development (1 Page): Candidate Background and Goals, Training Objectives, FCDGC Mentor, Coursework and Seminars, CDG Program Development, Program Structure, and Future Development;
• Bibliography (1 Page)

The following criteria will be considered during the review process.

• Does the application meet the eligibility requirements?
• Does the proposed research have the potential to improve care and diagnosis of individuals with CDG?
• Are the aims well defined?
• Is the approach innovative?
• Are the methods appropriate?
• Will the collected data answer the stated aims?
• Is the budget adequate and the timeline realistic?
• Does the applicant have good potential for future success?
• Is the potential for establishment of a new research line with focus on CDG strong?

All applications will undergo the following process.

• Applications will be reviewed by the FCDGC Career Development Committee, and feedback will be provided to all applicants.
• The award recipient will be selected after the review of all applications.

• Training in the discovery and validation of a novel CDG. This will include the proposed mutated gene of the novel disorder, clinical description of patients, collaboration with their physicians, and, if appropriate, also their families. Underlying mechanisms and biochemical evidence to support the claim, along with reliable, specific biomarkers of the disorder will be required.
• Establishment of a clinically validated test for an established treatable glycosylation disorder
• Identification of a reliable biomarker for a known CDG that currently lacks such a marker

All questions and applications may be submitted directly to the FCDGC Career Development Committee via Kozicz.tamas@mayo.edu