CIMIT Offers Young Clinician Research Awards Worth
$50,000 to Each Consortium Hospital

A call for nominations for the 2009 CIMIT Young Clinician Research Award has been announced by John A. Parrish, MD, Executive Director.  The program is being supported by Johnson & Johnson, and each award is worth $50,000. Applicants must be nominated by Site Miners from the CIMIT consortium member hospitals. The deadline for applications is July 15, 2009.

CIMIT is seeking promising projects examining medical-device development as it relates to tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, minimally invasive diagnostics and therapies, metabolic disease and biomaterials.

Those eligible include clinical researchers early in their careers, such as Fellows, Instructors and Assistant Professors. A key criterion is the clinician's desire to solve complex health-care problems.

Nominations will be made by Site Miners of the CIMIT consortium member hospitals, who will forward the names of the two top candidates recommended by the institution. Call for nominations open June 1, and deadline for nominations is July 15. The award date is July 24, and funding is scheduled to start Aug. 1.

Submission of a candidate's application will include a personal statement of career goals and why they seek this award; a letter of recommendation from the Chief of Service; a basic research proposal of two-to-three pages identifying a clinical problem and the potential impact on the patient; and current CV.

Criteria include fitting with the CIMIT Mission; the relative potential impact of clinicians work on patient care; the collaborative nature of the planned work; the innovativeness of the research; the academic excellence of the candidate; and the potential of the candidate to become a "rising star" with a future as a clinical leader in the field.

Site Miners for the consortium hospitals are the following: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Steven Schachter, MD; Boston Medical Center, George O'Connor, MD; Brigham and Women's Hospital, Fred Schoen, MD, PhD, and Joseph Bonventre, MD, PhD; Children's Hospital Boston, Martha Murray, MD, and Frank Pigula, MD; Massachusetts General Hospital, Warren Sandberg, MD; Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Keith Isaacson, MD; and Brian Hoffman, MD, VA Boston Healthcare System.