Goals:

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation supports “out-of-the-box” innovative research projects that are potentially transformative to our efforts to diagnose, treat and/or cure Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

Through our Innovator Awards Program for IBD Research, we aim to reach out to all scientific disciplines from any non-profit research institution worldwide as a means to attract innovative researchers and encourage integrative cooperation across all disciplines in an effort to accomplish the Foundation’s mission of no one suffering from IBD.

Giving Guidelines for Health:

The Foundation supports projects that are in close alignment with its Awards Program criteria,
which includes:

• Innovation
• Scientific merit
• Strong evidence of collaboration
• High potential for success
• Funding projects that, due to their innovative nature,  may not be eligible for funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or other more traditional sources.

Process for the 2012 Innovator Awards Program for IBD Research

Letters of Inquiry (LOI) will be accepted online January 15 – February 15, 2012. The one-page LOI must include the basic idea and the central experiment. A biosketch will also be required. The Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board will determine which applicants will be invited to submit a full application. Applicant selection will primarily be based on the project’s close alignment with the Innovator Awards Program’s criteria. Full applications, which will consist of an expanded LOI (up to three pages), two pages of science and a budget, will be due by May 1st.

The Innovator Awards Program is open to tenure track professors (or the equivalent) at all levels from any scientific discipline and from any non-profit research institutions worldwide. Interdisciplinary collaboration is strongly encouraged.

Breakthrough Awards Program for IBD Research

The Breakthrough Awards Program is designed to provide longer term support to existing KRF-funded Innovator Award recipients that have demonstrated significant “proof of principle” research progress validating their original innovative hypotheses. KRF Innovator Awardees are evaluated for potential Breakthrough Awards at the end of their initial year of funding at the KRF’s Annual SAB meeting.

2012 Innovations Symposium: New Insights in Human Evolution & IBD

The Kenneth Rainin Foundation’s inaugural 2012 Innovations Symposium will be held on Friday, July 20, 2012 at The Four Seasons Hotel Chicago. This unique, first-of-its kind, one-day symposium will bring together preeminent investigators in human evolution, genetics, microbiology and the environment to describe and explore how advances in each of these fields can promote out-of-the-box thinking and foster breakthroughs in our understanding of mechanisms of disease and therapy for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

Using inflammatory bowel disease as a lens, senior leaders in each discipline will discuss their work, with ample time dedicated to audience participation to draw connections across these distinct but related disciplines and set new directions for the future.

Guest speakers include:

• Bonnie Bassler, Ph.D. – Princeton University – Topic: “Tiny Conspiracies: Cell-to-Cell Communication in Bacteria”
• Anna Di Rienzo – Ph.D. – University of Chicago – Topic: “Adaptations to New Environments and Disease Susceptibility”
• Paul Ewald – Ph.D. – University of Louisville - Topic: “Evolutionary Insights into the Causes and Prevention of Cancer”
• Christopher W. Kuzawa – Ph.D. – Northwestern University – Topic: “How Early Experiences Shape Developmental Biology: Implications for Adult Chronic Disease”
• Stephen Rappaport, Ph.D. – UC Berkeley – Topic: “Using Exposome-Wide Association Studies (EWAS) to Discover Environmental Causes of Disease”.
• Stephen Stearns, Ph.D. – Yale University – Topic: “Parasites and Autoimmune Disease: An Overview of the Hygiene Hypothesis”

The goal of The Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovators Symposium is to bring together leading authorities in a variety of fields to start developing a scientific dialogue that will expand our horizons, promote the development of new ideas and insights, and foster collaborations to speed innovations in our knowledge and in patient care for IBD and other chronic diseases. By bringing together noted experts in fields with diverse insights, we believe that this unique Symposium will have a powerful and lasting impact on all participants and the research and patient care in which we are all invested.

Registration:

Register online for this inaugural event at http://www.rainin-symposium.com/.  Early registration is recommended as seating is limited to 100.

Webcasting:

On-Demand webcasting will be available the day after the event. Please check back soon for more details.

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