2018 Gund-Harrington Scholar Award

The Gund-Harrington Scholar Award supports innovative research efforts that could prevent, treat or cure blindness resulting from inherited retinal degenerative diseases. The Gund-Harrington Scholar Award is part of the Gund-Harrington Initiative for Fighting Blindness.

Multi-Level Support for Award Recipients Includes:

Funding totaling up to $900,000over three years based on progress made towards milestones
Committed drug development and project management supportthrough the Harrington Discovery Institute’s Innovation Support Center team of pharmaceutical experts for the 3 year term
Dedicated pharma team provided for each scholar
Business and commercialization assessment
Clinical development strategy
Regulatory guidance
Intellectual property review and strategy
Access to contract research organizations/service providers

Award Criteria:

The competition is open to investigators at accredited academic medical centers, research institutions and universities in the U.S. and Canada
Applicants must have a PhD or MD degree (or equivalent) and demonstrate exceptional promise.
Multidisciplinary investigators outside the field of retinal disease developing a therapeutic strategy with a potential to benefit inherited retinal degenerative diseases are particularly encouraged to apply.
Of particular interest is the targeting of pathways and processes that might affect inherited retinal dystrophies and vision, with the ultimate goal of advancing the translation of research programs into therapies for the prevention and treatment of these diseases. In most cases, device development is not supported.

Areas of interest include:

Inherited retinal degenerations such as retinitis pigmentosa, Leber’s congential amaurosis, cone dystrophies, and juvenile macular dystrophies like Stargardt or Best disease, choroideremia, and retinoschisis. In general, inherited retinal degenerative diseases that impact photoreceptors or RPE primarily
Targeting of pathways and processes that might affect retinal dystrophies and vision, with the ultimate goal of advancing the translation of research programs into therapies for the prevention and treatment of these diseases.
Therapies based on novel targets
Treatment strategies that are not gene specific, but may be broadly applicable across many patients such as therapies that may be effective for later stages of disease
Therapies that address juvenile macular degeneration
Regenerative medicine therapies that focus on stem cells differentiated into photoreceptor cells or precursors
Therapies developing gene delivery vectors or gene modifying strategies that can be used as a general platform to target specific retinal cell types, deliver/correct genes with large coding regions, specifically target outer retinal cells or impact cells across the entire retinal area

Application Submission:

Interested applicants are required to submit a Letter of Intent and CV no later than midnight EST on October 25, 2017.
Selected applicants will then be invited to submit a full application. Final applications are due by midnight EST on January 19, 2018.

Further details:
2018 Gund-Harrington Scholar Award