Ellison Medical Foundation

Overview: From the Foundation's webpage: The Ellison Medical Foundation, established and supported by (Oracle Corporation CEO) Lawrence J. Ellison, supports basic biomedical research, research training, and related scientific activities, through programs on aging and on infectious diseases of global health importance.

The Foundation particularly wishes to stimulate new, creative, research that might not be funded by traditional sources or that is often under-funded in the U.S.

Award Mechanisms

The Ellison Medical Foundation supports research and research-related activities through a variety of grants mechanisms. Awards are made only to a single U.S. non-profit institution. These institutions may enter into consortium or sub-contractual arrangements with other non-profit organizations, in the U.S. or elsewhere, as necessary to benefit the scientific goals of the project.

The Foundation desires to provide both experienced senior scholars and newly independent scientists the opportunity to pursue innovative research on aging and infectious disease.

Senior Scholars are investigators who are already established and recognized for their substantial contribution of creative and productive research. With the Senior Scholar awards, the Foundation seeks to be complementary to other major funders of research by placing emphasis on projects that might not be supported by the traditional sources because of their perceived novelty or high risk, or because the investigator is moving into a new research area. Scholars are provided with four years of support to either develop their project to the extent that it will be attractive in a more traditional funding environment or determine that they should redirect their research.

New Scholars are investigators who are recommended by U.S. medical institutions and universities for their outstanding promise in the areas of aging or infectious disease research. With the New Scholar awards, the intent of the foundation is to provide support for newly independent investigators in the first 3 years after their postdoctoral training, when they are establishing their own labs and their careers are at a vulnerable stage. These awards contribute to a safety net that allows bright young scientists to staff their laboratories, collect preliminary data, and organize research programs of sufficient momentum to obtain ongoing support from other sources.

In addition to Scholars awards for individual research projects, The Ellison Medical Foundation also supports the scientific infrastructure in the fields of aging, infectious disease, and other program areas through awards for resource development, training, education and information dissemination. Those interested in applying for these awards should contact the appropriate Foundation program director for more information before applying.

Infrastructure Awards support the establishment of community-wide resources that will benefit a broad segment of researchers in the areas of programmatic interest to the Foundation. Examples include the development of reagent repositories, scientific databases, new model systems, or new experimental methodologies. Although nonrenewable, these awards provide an opportunity to develop and implement a new resource; ongoing long-term support, if required, must be identified from other funding sources.

Training Awards related to aging and infectious diseases are available and encouraged. The Foundation supports a limited number of institutional training programs, through universities, professional societies, government institutions, or other non-profit organizations. These programs are intended to reach younger scientists, still in graduate or post-doctoral training, to nurture their interest in developing careers in aging or infectious diseases research.

Support is also provided on a competitive basis for conferences , workshops , and other educational activities for dissemination of information relevant to research areas of Foundation interest. The expectation is that this sharing of knowledge will expand the scientific pool of researchers and benefit the scientific community as a whole.

In an effort to provide maximum flexibility to achieve important scientific goals, the Foundation may occasionally support pilot or demonstration projects as New Initiative Awards . These are usually small or short-term awards, and may pertain to aging or infectious diseases research or to other areas in which the Foundation has expressed a preliminary interest.

• Aging:
• Aging, Geriatrics: The Ellison Medical Foundation Aging Program supports basic biomedical research on aging relevant to understanding aging processes and age-related diseases and disabilities. The foundation stimulates basic biomedical research in multiple disciplines. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
  
  1. Structural biology
  2. Molecular genetics
  3. Studies with model systems ranging from lower eukaryotes to humans
  4. Inquiries testing the relevance of simpler models to human aging
  5. Genetic epidemiology of aging; candidate longevity genes
  6. Aging in the immune system
  7. Host defense molecules in aging systems
  8. Mechanisms of free radical induced cell aging
  9. Mechanisms of aging in various differentiated cell populations
  10. Gene/environment and gene/gene interactions
  Integrative physiology
  11. New approaches to age-modulated disease mechanisms: Alzheimer's disease and others.
• Diseases/Disabilities General:
• Health Organizations:
• Health, Global Health & Infectious Diseases: Within the broad scope of infectious disease research, the Global Infectious Disease Program aims to focus its support by placing emphasis on:
  
  1. Those intractable or emerging parasitic and infectious diseases, caused by viral, bacterial, fungal, protozoal, or helminthic pathogens of major global public health concern, that are relatively neglected in federally funded research within the U.S.
  
  2. Innovative research that might not be funded by traditional sources, including projects involving the application of new concepts or new technologies whose feasibility is not yet proven, projects seeking commonalities among pathogens that might yield new insights into mechanisms of infection, invasion and pathogenesis, or projects seeking to bring together diverse scientific disciplines in the study of infectious diseases
  
  3. Aspects of fundamental research that may significantly impact the understanding and control of infectious diseases, but have not found a home within traditional funding agencies, such as:
  a. Our microbiome – natural microflora and pathogen ecology and evolution
  b. Therapeutic role of probiotics
  c. New concepts for antivirals and antiparasitics
  d. Diet, nutrition and immunity
  e. Implications of disease eradication
  f. Zoonoses – wildlife and human disease
  g. Comparative immunology
  h. Threats from newly explored habitats
  i. Host factors, human genomics and disease susceptibility
  j. Signaling and gene flow between parasites and hosts
  k. Parasite molecular mimicry
  l. Fever and other symptomatology
  m. Plasmid and phage determinants of virulence
  n. Phylogeny and ultimate origins of viruses
  o. Nosocomial infection and sanitary precaution
  p. Vector control and pesticide development
  q. Dyshygenic abuse of antibiotics and microbicides
  
  The Global Infectious Disease Program encourages formation of research consortia between U.S. institutions and those in other disease endemic countries.
• Health, Public Health/Communicable Diseases:
• Medical Research:
• Medicine, Biomedicine:

Sample Grants
$ 253,875 to Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University , NY
$ 10,000 to American Aging Association , PA
$ 186,875 to American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) , NY
$ 100,000 to American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene , Northbrook , IL Support for a Postdoctoral Fellowship
$ 224,250 to Baylor College of Medicine , Houston , TX For research project, Connections between Telomere Sensing and DNA Damage Accumulation Models of Cellular Senescence and Aging
$ 10,000 to Buck Institute for Age Research
$ 1,436,670 to CDC Foundation , Atlanta , GA
$ 10,000 to International Longevity Center USA , NY
$ 750,000 to Jackson Laboratory , Bar Harbor , ME "Repository for Mouse Models of Human Diseases"
$ 10,000 to Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cellular Biology , CO
$ 102,000 to Life Sciences Research Foundation , Baltimore , MD
$ 2,317,357 to Marine Biological Laboratory , Woods Hole , MA "Molecular Pathogenesis and Global Infectious Diseases"
$ 50,000 to National Institute on Aging , MD
$ 264,434 to Scripps Institution of Oceanography , CA For research project, Chronic Neuroprotection during Aging by UCP Mediated Simultaneous Reduction of Free Radical Formation and Exocitotoxicity
$ 594,000 to University of Virginia , Charlottesville , VA "Center for Global Health"

Application Procedures:: See foundation's Web site or the Foundation's most recent IRS 990PF Report for detailed application information.

Applicants should submit the following:
1) brief history of organization and description of its mission
2) detailed description of project and amount of funding requested

Grants Paid

2002 ($29,000,000 )

2003 ($33,000,000 )

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