The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that it is awarding $348 million to encourage investigators to explore bold ideas that have the potential to catapult fields forward and speed the translation of research into improved health.

The full complement of awards is granted under three innovative research programs supported by the NIH Common Fund's Roadmap for Medical Research: the NIH Director's Transformative R01 (T-R01) Awards, Pioneer Awards, and New Innovator Awards. The Common Fund, enacted into law by Congress through the 2006 NIH Reform Act, supports cross-cutting, trans-NIH programs with a particular emphasis on innovation and risk taking. A portion of these New Innovator Awards is also supported by funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

"The appeal of the Pioneer, New Innovator, and now the T-R01 programs, is that investigators are encouraged to challenge the status quo with innovative ideas, while being given the necessary resources to test them," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "The fact that we continue to receive such strong proposals for funding through the programs reflects the wealth of creative ideas in science today."

Accelerating the current pace of discovery through the support of highly innovative research is an ongoing effort at the NIH, but the NIH Director's T-R01 Program is new this year. Named for the standard investigator-initiated research project that the NIH supports, the R01, the T-R01s provide a new opportunity for scientists that is unmatched by any other NIH program. Since no budget cap is imposed and preliminary results are not required, scientists are free to propose new, bold ideas that may require significant resources to pursue. They are also given the flexibility to work in large, complex teams if the complexity of the research problem demands it.

This year, the NIH is granting 115 NIH Director's High-Risk Research Awards: 42 T-R01 Awards, 18 Pioneer Awards, and 55 New Innovator Awards for early-stage investigators.

The NIH expects to make competing awards of $30 million to T-R01 awardees, $13.5 million to Pioneer awardees, and approximately $131 million to New Innovators in Fiscal Year 2009. The total funding provided to this competing cohort over a five-year period is estimated to be $348 million. The New Innovator total includes $23 million in funds through the Recovery Act.

This year's awards make the largest number of Pioneer and New Innovator awards in the programs' history. Investigators funded via the 2004 cohort, the first year of the Pioneer Awards, have completed their projects. Details on the progress made by these awardees are available at nihroadmap.nih/pioneer/Profiles04/index.aspx.

The 2009 recipients' names and institutions are listed below. More information on the Transformative R01 Award is at nihroadmap.nih/T-R01. For descriptions of the 2009 recipients' research plans, see nihroadmap.nih/T-R01/Recipients09.asp. Information on the Pioneer Award is at nihroadmap.nih/pioneer, including information on this year's awardees nihroadmap.nih/pioneer/Recipients09.aspx.

More information on the New Innovator Award is at nihroadmap.nih/newinnovator. For descriptions of the 2009 recipients' research plans, see nihroadmap.nih/newinnovator/Recipients09.asp.

The NIH Common Fund encourages collaboration and supports a series of exceptionally high impact, trans-NIH programs known collectively as the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. The NIH Director's Transformative R01, Pioneer, and New Innovator Award programs are part of the NIH Roadmap. They are funded through the Common Fund and managed by the NIH Office of the Director and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, respectively. The Roadmap is a series of initiatives designed to pursue major opportunities and gaps in biomedical research that no single NIH institute could tackle alone, but that the agency as a whole can address to make the biggest impact possible on the progress of medical research. Additional information about the NIH Roadmap can be found at nihroadmap.nih.

The Office of the Director, the central office at NIH, is responsible for setting policy for NIH, which includes 27 Institutes and Centers. This involves planning, managing, and coordinating the programs and activities of all NIH components. The Office of the Director also includes program offices which are responsible for stimulating specific areas of research throughout NIH. Additional information is available at nih/icd/od/.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) - The Nation's Medical Research Agency - includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit nih. Some activities described in this release are being funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). More information about NIH's ARRA grant funding opportunities can be found at grants.nih/recovery/. To track the progress of HHS activities funded through the ARRA, visit hhs/recovery. To track all federal funds provided through the ARRA, visit recovery.

2009 NIH Director's Transformative R01 Award Recipients Frederick M. Ausubel, Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School

Sylvie Breton, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School / Massachusetts General Hospital.

Julio A. Camarero, Ph.D., University of Southern California School of Pharmacy

Pinchas Cohen, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Benjamin F. Cravatt, Ph.D. and Thomas Kodadek, Ph.D., The Scripps Research Institute

Michael P. Czech, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts Medical School

Gaudenz Danuser, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School; and Klaus M. Hahn, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Joshua T. Dubnau, Ph.D., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

David A. Fidock, Ph.D., Columbia University Health Sciences

Linda G. Griffith, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Calvin Kuo, M.D., Ph.D., Stanford University School of Medicine

Andrew R. Hoffman, M.D., VA Palo Alto Health Care System / Stanford University School of Medicine

Ravi Iyengar, Ph.D., John Cijiang He, M.D., Ph.D. and Susana Neves, Ph.D., Mount Sinai School of Medicine; James C. Hone, Ph.D., Columbia University; and Leslie M. Loew, Ph.D., University of Connecticut Health Center

Samie R. Jaffrey, M.D., Ph.D., Weill Medical College, Cornell University

Ru-Rong Ji, Ph.D. and Charles N. Serhan, Ph.D., Brigham & Women's Hospital /Harvard Medical School

Shohei Koide, Ph.D., University of Chicago

Eric Lagasse, Pharm.D., Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Brendan Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine

Frank S. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Kim Lewis, Ph.D., Northeastern University

Long-Cheng Li, M.D. and Hao Li, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco

John T. Lis, Ph.D., Harold G. Craighead, Ph.D., and Moonsoo Jin, Sc.D., Cornell University

Jaroslaw P. Maciejewski, M.D., Ph.D., Cleveland Clinic

Peter A. Margolis, Ph.D. and Michael Seid, Ph.D., Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

David M. Markovitz, M.D., University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Sanford Markowitz, M.D., Ph.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Wallace Marshall, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine

Partha P. Mitra, Ph.D., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Deborah G. Murdock, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University

Sheila T. Murphy, Ph.D., Annenberg School for Communication; Lourdes Baezconde Garbanati, Ph.D., M.P.H, Keck School of Medicine; Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Ph.D., and Robert Haile, Ph.D., University of Southern California

Kevin Niswender, M.D., Ph.D., Tennessee Valley Healthcare System and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Aurelio Galli, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Julie Parsonnet, M.D., Stanford University School of Medicine

Gerald H. Pollack, Ph.D., University of Washington

Charles M. Rice, Ph.D., Rockefeller University; Sangeeta Bhatia, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Richard W. Roberts, Ph.D., University of Southern California; Hyongsok (Tom) Soh, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara

Bela Suki, Ph.D., Boston University

Muneesh Tewari, M.D., Ph.D., Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Loren D. Walensky, M.D., Ph.D., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Robert B. Wilson, M.D., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Joseph C. Wu, M.D. Ph.D., Stanford University School of Medicine

Xiaoliang S. Xie, Ph.D., Harvard University

Mark J. Zylka, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2009 NIH Director's Pioneer Award Recipients Ivor J. Benjamin, M.D., University of Utah School of Medicine

Ajay Chawla, M.D., Ph.D., Stanford University

Chang-Zheng Chen, Ph.D., Stanford University

Hilde Cheroutre, Ph.D., La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology

Markus W. Covert, Ph.D., Stanford University

Joseph M. DeSimone, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill / North Carolina State University

Sylvia M. Evans, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Joseph R. Fetcho, Ph.D., Cornell University

Timothy E. Holy, Ph.D., Washington University School of Medicine

Tannishtha Reya, Ph.D., Duke University

Gene E. Robinson, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Susan M. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine

Leona D. Samson, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Nirao M. Shah, M.D., Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco

Krishna V. Shenoy, Ph.D., Stanford University

Sarah A. Tishkoff, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania

Alexander J. Travis, V.M.D., Ph.D., Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine

Jin Zhang, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 2009 NIH Director's New Innovator Award Recipients Mark W. Albers, M.D., Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital

Adah Almutairi, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Euan A. Ashley, Ph.D., Stanford University

Michel Bagnat, Ph.D., Duke University School of Medicine

Gábor Balázsi, Ph.D., University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Ipsita Banerjee, Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh

Edward B. Brown III, Ph.D., University of Rochester Medical Center

Fernando Camargo, Ph.D., Children's Hospital Boston

Nikolaos Chronis, Ph.D., University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Ted Cohen, M.D., M.P.H., D.P.H., Brigham and Women's Hospital

Elva D. Diaz, Ph.D., University of California, Davis, School of Medicine

Kathy DeRiemer, Ph.D., University of California, Davis, School of Medicine

Adam J. Engler, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Alla Grishok, Ph.D., Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

Ira M. Hall, Ph.D., University of Virginia

Sarah Heilshorn, Ph.D., Stanford University

K.C. Huang, Ph.D., Stanford University

Sanjay K. Jain, M.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Kevin A. Janes, Ph.D., University of Virginia

Melissa Lambeth Kemp, Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology

Gabriel Kreiman, Ph.D., Children's Hospital Boston / Harvard Medical School

Christopher Kristich, Ph.D., Medical College of Wisconsin

Siavash K. Kurdistani, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine

Naa Oyo A. Kwate, Ph.D., Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Kibum Lee, Ph.D., Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick

Daniel A. Lim, M.D., Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco

Stavros Lomvardas, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco

Andre G. Machado, M.D., Ph.D., Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine-CWRU

David Masopust, Ph.D., University of Minnesota Medical School

J. Rodrigo Mora, M.D., Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School

Alysson R. Muotri, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine

Sunitha Nagrath, Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School

Vikas Nanda, Ph.D., Robert Wood Johnson Medical School / University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey

Diane Joyce Ordway, Ph.D., Colorado State University

Aydogan Ozcan, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Christine K. Payne, Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology

Anna A. Penn, M.D., Ph.D., Stanford University School of Medicine

John S. Pezaris, Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital

Patrick L. Purdon, Ph.D., Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School

Shu-Bing Qian, Ph.D., Cornell University

Wei-Jun Qian, Ph.D., Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Leon Reijmers, Ph.D., Tufts University School of Medicine

Theresa M. Reineke, Ph.D., Virginia Tech

John L. Rinn, Ph.D. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center / Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Pardis Christine Sabeti, M.D., D.Phil., Harvard University

Magali Saint-Geniez, Ph.D., Schepens Eye Research Institute/Harvard Medical School

Wenying Shou, Ph.D., Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Justin L. Sonnenburg, Ph.D., Stanford University School of Medicine

Sohail Tavazoie, M.D., Ph.D., Rockefeller University

Jerilyn A. Timlin, Ph.D., Sandia National Laboratories

Cho-Lea Tso, Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles

Erik M. Ullian, Ph.D., University of California San Francisco School of Medicine

Vaiva Vezys, Ph.D, University of Minnesota Medical School

Leor S. Weinberger, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego

Chun-Li Zhang, Ph.D., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas Source:
Karen Silver
NIH/Office of the Director