Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Neurodegeneration Challenge Network – Collaborative Science Awards
Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent: April 3, 2018 by 2:00PM EST
Award Amount: $350,000 per year for three years
Target Applicants: Small group collaborations in which at least one member is a physician with active clinical engagement in an area relevant to the proposal.

The Collaborative Science Awards program welcomes applications for small group, interdisciplinary collaborations that support innovative, bold, high risk/high impact projects at the interface of basic and disease biology in neurodegeneration. Recent advances in neurodegenerative disease research, especially in genetics and genomics, have expanded the view of contributing mechanisms, such as the immune system, glia, vascular systems, and metabolism. This program aims to build on these advances by investing in collaborative, cross-cutting research that focuses on foundational science (as opposed to translation and clinical application), aligned with clinical context.

The program strongly encourages applications from researchers who are working in relevant fields outside of neurodegeneration and neuroscience, such as cell biology, immunology, metabolism, physiology, and computational biology. Previous work in neurodegeneration is not a prerequisite as long as the proposal is able to make a strong case for potential relevance to neurodegeneration. Successful projects will be foundational and mechanistic studies grounded in human biology and disease pathology that provide new avenues for future translational and clinical development work. Applications are welcome from both investigators who are tackling underexplored topics as well as those addressing more well-developed mechanisms where there remain significant gaps in understanding. The selection process for this award involves three steps: a Letter of Intent, a full application from invited groups, and an in-person interview with finalists from the full application round.