Columbia Precision Medicine Joint Pilot Grants Program

This service is provided by the Precision Medicine Resource (PMR) in collaboration with the Columbia Precision Medicine Initiative and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Overview

The Precision Medicine Pilot Awards fund one-year pilot studies in precision medicine. Studies must be relevant to advancing precision medicine basic science, pre-clinical/clinical approaches to tailor medical care (prevention, diagnosis, and/or treatment) to the individual patient, and/or precision cancer research.

Example areas include, but are not limited to:

• Genetic, genomic, or multi-omic data analyses, exposomics, biomarkers, genetic disease mechanism, stem cell biology, decision support tools, aggregated clinical/environmental data and/or patient-reported data to develop personalized medical care, new methods of working with precision medicine data and its integration with electronic health records, and new individualized approaches to effectively educate and communicate with patients.

These pilot grants are intended to support feasibility studies at Columbia that will establish a basis for applying for further research funding. As such, pilot grants are intended to generate preliminary data required to produce competitive grant applications to outside funders.

• Duration: One year
• Award amount: $100,000 
• Number of awards: Up to four per year

See a list of current and past Precision Medicine pilot award recipients.

Eligibility

• Applicants (PI) must have a full-time Columbia University/Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons/Columbia University Irving Medical Center faculty appointment at the rank of an Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor. 
• Preference will be given to applications from early- and mid-career investigators. 
• Applications with an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach involving several departments or schools will be viewed favorably. 
• Collaborations between Morningside, Manhattanville, and Irving Medical Center campuses are encouraged. 
• Each team is limited to six (6) members.  
• Special consideration will be given to applications from Principal Investigators and/ or teams of investigators from underrepresented groups and projects that include research plans reflecting alignment with CUIMC’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. 
• Applicants are eligible to submit only one application as PIs or Co-PIs per award cycle, but they could be listed as co-investigators or consultants on multiple applications. Faculty who have received Precision Medicine pilot award funding from CPMI, HICCC, or the Irving Institute as PIs and/or Co-PIs within the last 3 years are not eligible to apply as PIs and/or Co-PIs in this cycle, but they could be listed as co-investigators or consultants on applications. 

Deadlines

Applications are now closed for this award cycle.

Contact

For any questions about the application process, please email precisionmedicine@columbia.edu

For any questions about the scientific content and eligibility, please contact specific group:

Pre-clinical and clinical precision medicine research - Dhriti Jagannathan, MS, CGC
Program Manager
Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research 
dj2666@cumc.columbia.edu

Basic/fundamental precision medicine research - Dr. Melanie Brazil
Chief of Staff
Columbia Precision Medicine Initiative
mb4072@cumc.columbia.edu

Cancer precision medicine research - Dr. Sadiqa Quadri
Research Program Manager
Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
skq1@cumc.columbia.edu

Cite it, Submit it, Share it!

If your research has benefited from one or more Irving Institute resources, please remember to:

• Cite our CTSA grant, UL1 TR001873, in any relevant publications, abstracts, chapters, and/or posters.
• Submit your publications to PubMed Central (PMC) for compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.
• Share your research updates with us by sending an email to: irving_institute@cumc.columbia.edu