The Kenneth Rainin Foundation Invites Submissions for 2015 Innovator Grant Awards

OAKLAND, Calif., Jan. 22, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As part of its mission to advance research and find a cure for Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), the Kenneth Rainin Foundation seeks Letters of Inquiry for its Innovator Awards program. This year, the Rainin Foundation is offering a special Innovator Award for projects that investigate the impact of diet and nutrition on IBD in humans. Submissions will be accepted online from January 15 through February 15, 2015. 

"The new Innovator Award focused on diet and nutrition reflects the longstanding appreciation that patients with IBD can be very sensitive to changes in their diets, and that we have a poor understanding of when and how diets change the course of IBD," said Dr. Averil Ma, chair of the Rainin Foundation's Scientific Advisory Board. "We want to encourage more inquiry in this area."

The Innovator Awards provide $100,000 grants for one-year proof of principle research projects that are potentially transformative to diagnosing, treating and curing IBD. This includes projects that may not be eligible for funding from traditional sources due to their innovative nature. The Foundation's criteria for funding include innovation, scientific merit, collaboration, and capability to execute the project. The program is open to tenure track professors or the equivalent at all levels in any scientific discipline and from any non-profit research institution worldwide.

One-page Letters of Inquiry should describe the basic idea and central experiment. Applicants selected by the Foundation's review panel of scientific advisors will be invited to submit a full proposal by May 1, 2015. For complete program information, eligibility requirements and application guidelines, visit the Rainin Foundation's website at krfoundation.org/health.

As a complement to its Innovator Awards program, the Foundation has announced that it will host its fourth annual Innovations Symposium in San Francisco on July 20-21, 2015. The symposium brings together influential and collaborative researchers, and creative thinkers to work toward the common goal of curing IBD.

This year's topic is Wound Healing, Repair & IBD. The symposium provides attendees with the opportunity to network with the IBD research community and researchers in complementary fields, bridge the gap among divergent areas of research, and discover additional grant opportunities offered by the Rainin Foundation. This year's event features a distinguished group of guest speakers and several of the Foundation's current grantees who will share their research progress.

To further encourage collaboration among researchers and support new ideas, the Foundation has established the Synergy Award, a grant opportunity available exclusively to researchers who attend the symposium.  The award will provide $100,000 in research support for one year to each investigator on the team, up to a total of $300,000.  In addition, to encourage eligible students and post-doctoral fellows to participate in the symposium, the Foundation is offering travel awards to help offset the costs associated with the conference. The Call for Abstracts for the symposium closes on April 30, 2015. Early registration, which includes a $75 discount, ends on March 30, 2015. Visit our new symposium website at krfoundation.org/symposium for more information and registration.

About the Kenneth Rainin Foundation
Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a private family foundation dedicated to enhancing quality of life by championing and sustaining the arts, promoting early childhood literacy and supporting research to cure chronic disease. Collaboration and innovation are at the heart of all our programs. Our vision is guided by the belief that change is possible through inquiry, creativity and compassion.

The Foundation funds groundbreaking research projects that transform diagnosing, treating, and curing Inflammatory Bowel Disease for an estimated 5 million people worldwide currently afflicted with these devastating diseases. Learn more at krfoundation.org.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150122/170694 
Logo- http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140310/DC78654LOGO

SOURCE The Kenneth Rainin Foundation