The annual call for applications to the Catherine Cookson Foundation is now live on the Staff and Student Homepages.

The Trustees of the Foundation are anxious to publicise the availability of funds as widely as possible in order to encourage applications and if you are able to further disseminate the information that would be very helpful.

To be clear, these are internal funds which become available as interest builds up on an endowment fund, and therefore applicants do not need to go through the normal research application process.

The link to our Executive Office page about the Foundation can be found here:

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/executive/office/responsibilities/CatherineCooksonFoundation.htm

Small grants, normally in a range between £500 and £5000, are made on a one-off, non-recurrent basis to projects where the Trustees consider their intervention will make a significant difference between success and failure, and where there are no other obvious routes to obtain significant support. See list of previous award winners to get a flavour of the type of projects that have been supported already. Unfortunately the Trustees are not able to consider applications for PhD study or applications which are of a standard research grant format, the latter should be directed to the relevant research council.

The criteria used in selecting projects for support are, that they:

• should be of modest size;
• should be the type of activity in which Dame Catherine Cookson herself might have had an interest;
• should have no obvious alternative source of support, or be the sort of project where support from the Foundation could be pump-priming for other financial help;
• should have local interest;
• should be of benefit to students.

It is a condition of any grant that a final report on the project is submitted to the Trustees. This should take the form of an A4 document, two pages in length, listing original objectives and saying to what extent they have been met together with a statement of how much was received from the Foundation and how it was spent.  If a final report is not forthcoming within a reasonable time, the Trustees reserve the right to request the return of the funds.

The annual call for applications is now underway with a closing date of 5 pm on Friday 18 May 2018. An application form is available here and should be made in the form of a single pdf document (combining application form, supporting statement and cv if appropriate) and submitted to Alison.Pickard@ncl.ac.uk

PP_GIP_GBR_2956ASPIRE2018_Final V2.0_11Jan18 – GBR

18875 FWIS 2018 200×200 flyer

Pfizer Opens a Unique Call for Important Clinical Research – Patients First Inflammation ASPIRE 2018

https://www.aspireresearch.org/

The Inflammation ASPIRE research grant programme has been proudly supported by Pfizer for five years, giving investigators an opportunity to further advance their research.

Open to investigators throughout wider Europe, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.

• The effect of inhibition of the JAK–STAT pathway by targeting JAK on specific clinical effects, looking at efficacy and/or safety outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ulcerative colitis (UC) and psoriatic arthritis (PsA)
• The role of the JAK–STAT pathway in inflammation in PsA

The ASPIRE programme places patients at the forefront of clinical investigations. The translational potential of research into clinical practice within a short timeframe has always been considered paramount. It is for this reason Pfizer has encouraged investigators to apply for the programme over the years and will continue to support this vision.

The Pfizer Inflammation ASPIRE programme is designed to advance clinical and scientific research and generate data that will help inform clinical practice and treatment decisions in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and ulcerative colitis (UC).

We are proud to announce that ASPIRE 2018 will be a special programme with increased funding available for all three therapy areas. This opportunity will allow investigators to conduct clinically relevant investigations, providing an enhanced understanding of the disease area with potential benefits translated into clinical management.

Advances in science and medicine should translate into tangible clinical benefit in the short and long term. With this in mind, proposals should aim to describe the clinical value, the proposed research and its outcomes will add to patients’ lives. Innovative patient approaches in research design and/or research leading to tangible positive outcomes for patients will be prioritised.

Rheumatology

1. Treatment Optimisation in Rheumatoid Arthritis

• Treatment strategies in RA patients in sustained remission whilst on JAK inhibitor treatment
• Optimisation of management of RA patients, treated with JAK inhibitors, such as, but not limited
• to, monotherapy, concomitant treatment tapering or withdrawal (glucocorticoids, csDMARDs)
• Management of JAK inhibitor treatment in patients with co-morbidities, such as (but not limited
• to) infections (herpes zoster [HZ], other), interstitial lung disease
• HZ immunisation prior to JAK inhibitor treatment
• Impact of JAK inhibitor treatment on pain (CNS/peripheral)
• Assessment of adherence and compliance in patients treated with JAK inhibitors

2. Role of JAK pathway in Psoriatic Arthritis & Impact of JAK Inhibition on a Broad Range of Clinical

Outcomes

• The role of the JAK pathway in the pathophysiology and immunology of PsA
• The role of JAK–STAT inhibition with respect to pain and fatigue
• Effect of JAK–STAT inhibition on dactylitis and/or enthesitis
• Mechanistic understanding of JAK-STAT signalling on structural progression
• PP-XEL-EUR-0964 2
• Effect of JAK-STAT inhibition as monotherapy

Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Enhancing the Understanding of the Clinical Profile of JAK Inhibitors in the Treatment of UC Patients*

• Management of the risk of HZ with vaccination in UC patients treated with JAK inhibitors
• Evaluation of lipid elevations with JAK inhibitors in UC patients, including the MOA of such

• • potential effects
  • Effect of JAK inhibitors on extra-intestinal manifestations in UC patients
  • Effects of JAK inhibitors on hospitalisation and surgery rate, their respective causes and postsurgery
  • complications
  • Evaluation of risk for adenoma/dysplasia/colon cancer rate of patients treated with JAK
  • inhibitors

• *Strong preference will be given to studies that utilise the ECCO UR-CARE platform for capturing IBD patients’ records.

Awards will be made by an independent committee according to the scientific value of each proposal.

Funding in RA will vary depending on the research question.

However, the programme will include awards of up to 1,500,000 – 2,000,000 Euros for multicentre, multi-national clinical studies for exceptional proposals (1-2 proposals). Smaller grants are also available for investigators wishing to pursue smaller scale projects.

Funding in PsA and UC will also depend on the research question, with maximum awards of up to 200,000 Euros for clinical proposals and up to 80,000 Euros for translational research in PsA.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 23rd 2018

Pfizer looks forward to the Inflammation ASPIRE 2018 Research Awards becoming even more successful in 2018 with this unique call.

Due to a new RCUK directive, applications involving animal research must contain a written declaration stating compliance with the ethics guidance provided below. This must be submitted to your existing application as a signed letter of support.

Since this is new guidance, we have received several applications for 18RM1 where this letter of support is absent, and we apologise that this information has not been effectively communicated to you. However, we will require this documentation in order to continue processing your application to send out for peer review. Applications without a completed animal usage form will be considered incomplete and will not be eligible for funding.

What is required:

You will need to write and sign a letter of support stating that your research involving animals will abide by this guidance. If you are using a protected species not considered to be an NC3R you are still required to submit a letter of support stating that you will comply with all statements below. 

Below is guidance which can also be found on the BBSRC website.

If your project involves the use of animals, please read our guidance and submit a signed statement (uploaded as a Letter of Support to the Je-S application) from both UK and overseas PIs that:

1. They will adhere to all relevant national and local regulatory systems in the UK and overseas.

2. They will follow the guidelines laid out in the www.nc3rs.org.uk/responsibility-use-animals-bioscience-research document and ensure that work is carried out to UK standards.

3. Before initiation of the proposed research work, appropriate approvals from institutional and/or central animal ethics committees will be obtained for experimental protocols to be adopted in their projects. [Successful proposals may be expected to provide copies of these permissions before funding is released.]

4. Details where the animal research will take place (UK or overseas) and through which funder the resources are being sought.  

If the research involves the use of rodents overseas rather than in the UK, please also complete the “Additional questions on the use of rodents overseas” form, and attach as a letter of support in Je-S.

This can be found by following the link below.

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/documents/documents/overseasrodentuse-pdf/

Dear colleagues

On behalf of the SAgE PG Dean, Selina Stead, please find details of the NERC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP)2 Call that may be of interest through the following link NERC DTP2 Call Summary. A link to the full NERC DTP2 call information can be found here.

Newcastle University is currently a partner of the IAPETUS DTP, which is led by Durham University. Newcastle are planning to resubmit as a partner to IAPETUS 2 as part of this DTP2 call but there is also an opportunity for Newcastle to submit a DTP proposal as lead PI.

Please note that Newcastle can only submit one DTP proposal as lead institution so a coordinated approach is required.

Therefore can we please ask that you provide information on any potential DTP ideas using the table below and return this via email by the 12^th February:

The external deadlines for the call are:

Closing date (Notification of Intent): 16:00 on Wednesday 7 March 2018

Closing date (Proposals): 16:00 on Wednesday 16 May 2018

Further information will be circulated once the expressions of interest are received, and further discussions can be arranged.

All queries and responses should be directed to: sagepgdean@ncl.ac.uk