Burroughs Wellcome Fund Seeks Proposals for Preterm Birth Research

The Burroughs Wellcome Fund created the Preterm Birth Initiative to increase the understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying parturition and spontaneous preterm birth.

The program is designed to bring together diverse interdisciplinary groups with expertise in genetics/genomics, immunology, microbiology, and proteomics along with the more traditional areas of parturition research to address scientific issues related to preterm birth. The fund has committed $3 million for the initiative and anticipates awarding five grants of up to $500,000 over a four-year period ($125,000 per year).

Proposals should address the biomedical causes and mechanisms underlying (preterm) parturition, including but not limited to peri-implantational events, placentation, fetal determinants, fetal-maternal immune responses, biological basis for racial-ethnic disparities, mechanisms relating preterm birth to other adverse pregnancy outcomes, biology of normal labor, etc. Proposals seeking to identify biomarkers predicting preterm birth are welcome.

To be eligible, the principal investigator must have a faculty appointment at a degree-granting institution in the United States or Canada. Researchers working at research institutes, national laboratories, within the federal government, or outside of North America may be partners or collaborators but all funding must be channeled through the U.S. or Canadian degree-granting institution of the principal investigator.

See the Burroughs Wellcome Foundation website for complete program guidelines, information about past recipients, and application instructions.