BHF REA3 Pump Priming Awards

The third and final round was held in April 2020. The focus was on Early Career Researcher (ECR) proposals and requests for funds to support all stages of translational research.

Overall, 11 applications were received with a total value of £411K.

3 ECR applications were approved for funding and 2 translational projects were also awarded funds.

Applications were assessed by at least two internal and two external reviewers and evaluated using the scoring matrix.

All translational projects had to score 16 or above out of 20, but the threshold for ECRs was lowered to 14 or above out of 20. This was to ensure a fairer process when evaluating applications:

Awardees - Early Career Researchers	Title	Amount Awarded
Dr Neshika Samarasekera (co-applicants Dr Grant Mair, Dr Adrian Parry-Jones, Dr Tom Moullaali, Dr Xia Wang & Prof Christopher Weir)	Individual patient data meta-analysis of the association between perihaematomal oedema and outcome after spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage	£46,740.65
Dr Matthew Brook (co-applicants Dr Etienne Dubiez, Dr Gillian Gray, Prof Nik Morton, Dr Sande Granneman & Dr Alex von Kriegsheim)	In vivo, genome-wide identification of the post-transcriptional regulation in heart and skeletal muscle that underpins the life-course of obesity-induced diabetes and cardiovascular disease	£28,632.85
Dr Mihaela Crisan (co-applicants Dr Bruno Péault, Dr Adriana Tavares, Prof Carmel Moran, Prof Clare Isacke, Prof David Newby, David Craig, Dr Gillian Gray & Dr Mairi Brittan)	CD248, a novel pericyte-expressed regulator of cardiac vascular remodelling and fibrosis post-injury?	£31,500.00

Awardees - Translational Research

Title

Amount Awarded

Prof Andrew Baker (co-applicants Dr Dónal O'Carroll &  Francesca Vacante)

A gene therapy CRISPR/Cas9 approach to prevent loss of smooth muscle cell identity in pathological blood vessel remodelling

£27,895.00

Dr Vicky MacRae (co-applicants Prof Scott Webster & Dr Patrick Hadoke)

Profiling of selective Autotaxin inhibitors in calcific aortic disease

£27,671.00

The second round of awards closed to applicants in September 2019. 14 applications were received, with a total value of £426K.

4 applications were successful in their bids for funding, each scoring 16 or above out of 20:

Awardees	Title	Amount Awarded
Dr Mairi Brittan (Co-applicants Professor Andrew Baker, Professor Dave Newby, Professor Nick Mills and Dr Julie Rodor)	Exploring the transcriptional landscape of pro-regenerative vascular endothelial progenitor cells in the fibrotic myocardium	£43,518.21
Dr Maurits Jansen (Co-applicants Professor Carmel Moran, Adrian Thomson, Dr Gillian Gray and Dr Adriana Tavares)	Optimisation, validation and quantative alignment of novel preclinical cardiac ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging methods	£11,628.00
Professor Roland Stimson (Co-applicants Dr Tom MacGillvray, Dr Scott Semple and Professor Edwin van Beek)	Investigating the genetics of human brown adipose tissue, a novel target for metabolic disease	£37,830.95
Dr Marc Dweck (Co-applicants Dr Christophe Portal, Dr Ashan Akram, Dr Adriana Tavares, Professor David E Newby and Professor Kev Dhaliwal)	Manufacture of 68Ga-FAPI: a novel tracer for fibrosis activity	£44,500.

The first round of awards closed to applicants in May 2019. 20 applications were received, with a total value of £620K.

5 applications were successful in their bids for funding, each scoring 16 or above out of 20:

Awardees	Title	Amount Awarded
Professor Anna Williams and Professor Andrew Baker (Co-applicants Doctor Mairi Brittan, Professor Jo Mountford and Professor Neil Henderson)	Can human embryonic-derived endothelial-like cells specify to brain microvasculature?	£47,666.00
Professor Trian Chavakis, Doctor Zoi Michailidou and Professor Nik Morton	Training of haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells by environmental cues and its impact on cardiometabolic disease	£39,867.00
Professor Rafael Kramann, Professor Neil Henderson and Doctor Marc Dweck	Dissecting activation, heterogeneity and crosstalk of PDGFRa/b+ cells in valvular stenosis and left ventricular remodelling following aortic stenosis	£46,200.00
Doctor Antoine Vallatos (Co-applicants Doctor Maurits Jansen, Doctor Michael Stringer, Professor Joanna Wardlaw and Professor Anna Williams)	MRI biomarkers of cerebral small vessel disease (CVD) in rodent models in vivo	£47,095.00
Doctor Kristiina Rannikmae	Clinical consequences of rare variants in Cerebral Small Vessel Disease genes	£44,375.31

This article was published on 2024-03-19