Fritz Wenzel, MCRF Interim Executive Director has announced a Request For Applications for the Clinician-Scientist Collaborative Research Award (CSCRA). The intention of the CSCRA is to serve as a catalyst for joint collaborative research, pairing a practicing Marshfield Clinic clinician as project leader with an MCRF scientist. Funding from the award is designated to cover clinician salary as a means to provide “protected time” for their project.

This will be the second year the recently created award has been available to MCHS clinicians and scientists. Funding support is provided by donations designated by contributors for disease-specific or general medical research. Drs. Holly Frost (Pediatrics – Minocqua) and Jennifer Meece (IRDL Director – MCRF) were recipients in the award’s inaugural year for their project titled Contribution of Host Genetic Factors to Susceptibility and Clinical Presentation of Blastomyces Infection.

When asked about how the new funding opportunity has impacted their research, Dr. Frost responded, “The scientist-clinician collaborative research award allows us to combine the best clinical and basic sciences researchers and techniques to improve outcomes for our patients.”

“The goal of our study is to determine why some patients with Blastomycosis have mild disease while others have severe infection. We also want to learn why some patients have infection only in their lungs while others have spread of infection to other organs,” she explains, “To accomplish this we are combining novel in-house developed sequencing techniques, human genotyping, and clinical evaluation of patient disease. We believe that through strong collaboration between physicians and scientists we can improve care for patients.”

The CSCRA is a single award of $125,000 maximum for up to 24 months of support. A Marshfield Clinic clinician must serve as the lead Principal Investigator for the study and commit a minimum of 20% of their time to the project.

Those interested in submitting an application for funding should review the RFA and submit a Letter of Intent (LOI). The due date for the LOI is December 30, 2016.