Pilot Projects Component

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Pilot Projects [Component VII] In this competitive renewal we are requesting support to fund an average of two pilot projects per year. As discussed previously, we have been extremely successful in attracting and recruiting scientists to the field of alcohol research. This has included the training and retention of several outstanding trainees from within the Center as well as the recruitment of established scientists from other fields. Further, we have accomplished this without the specific support of a pilot component within the Center. We have competed successfully for pilot and/or developmental support from the NIH, the VA, the Department of Defense, and foundations such as the American Lung Association. However, we recognize that a pilot component within the Center will enable us to provide just-in-time support for innovative basic and clinical research projects by relatively inexperienced junior faculty investigators who can partner with our experienced investigators and use our local intramural support to move into the alcohol research field. Therefore, we are including a pilot component that will be supervised by the Center Director and the Scientific Director. In Years 1 and 2 of our renewal we plan to support two pilot projects by new investigators that we have recruited into the Center in the past few years. The first project, directed by Andres Pelaez, examines the novel hypothesis that chronic alcohol abuse by organ donors (individuals who are relatively young and healthy but die from traumatic injuries) increases the risk of acute and chronic allograft dysfunction following lung transplantation. The second project, directed by Fernando Holguin, will examine the effects of chronic alcohol ingestion on airway oxidant stress and reactivity in subjects with asthma. Future pilot projects will be supported following a competitive extramural and intramural review process supervised by the Center Director and Scientific Director. In addition to supporting novel pilot projects by junior investigators within the Center, we will encourage applications from scientists outside the Center in order to attract new scientists into the alcohol research field and thereby invigorate our overall research program.