Research Scouts Program Closes First Year of Funding

2:00 PM

Dr. Prasov and one of his team members in the lab

Dr. Steven Kunkel, Chief Scientific Officer for Michigan Medicine and Executive Vice Dean for Research at the Medical School, recently announced that the Research Scouts program has closed its first year of funding. Research Scouts supports the Bold Science area of the Medical School's strategic research plan, "Great Minds, Greater Discoveries." 

After selecting 24 scouts from across Michigan Medicine, they were provided with $150,000 to invest in other faculty’s early-stage scientific ideas that they found novel and visionary. Highlights from the first year include:

•    $3.2 million distributed
•    46 projects
•    51 researchers
•    Projects from 11 basic science departments and 12 clinical departments

In his announcement, Dr. Kunkel observed that many of the funded projects complement Michigan Medicine's strategic research priorities. For instance, Maria Muzik’s project “Healing Communities for Black Fathers” dovetails with the health equity research priority and they’ve already lined up matching funds from the health system to enable further study. Sriram Chandrasekaran was an early awardee last year, and his project “Next Generation Drug Discovery: Looking Beyond Canonical Drugs Using Mechanistic AI” fits with the eHealth strategic priority. Dr. Chandrasekaran already has preliminary data and will use those results in an NIH funding submission later this summer. CLICK HERE to browse descriptions of the other 44 funded projects.

"We all have a part to play in achieving greater discoveries,” noted Dr. Kunkel. "I look forward to following the Research Scout awardees as they make further progress and collaborate with others across our research community."

Questions? Contact [email protected].

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