BNORC Small Grants Program
Small grants of up to $3,000 (direct costs only) will be awarded to investigators who are interested in utilizing the BNORC cores for the purpose of gathering critical preliminary data for a future grant application or to complete a funded project. Please contact the respective Core Director to discuss your project before preparing an application.
- Adipose Biology and Nutrient Metabolism (at Boston University)
- Epidemiology and Genetics (at Harvard School of TH Chan School of Public Health)
- Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics Core (at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center)
- Transgenic (at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center)
Preference will be given to early career investigators (Assistant Professor and below) who are investigating a novel area in nutrition or obesity research and investigators who are new to the nutrition or obesity field. Applications from trainees must include their mentor’s signature. There is no deadline and applications may be submitted at any time. Awards will be determined on an ongoing basis until funds are exhausted. We anticipate funding approximately 15 grants per year.
How to Apply
- Download Instruction/Application Form (Word Doc).
- Please contact the respective Core Director to discuss your project before preparing an application.
- Applications from junior investigators must include their mentor’s signature.
- Completed applications should be submitted as a single PDF via the submission form below.
Please contact Donna Gibson (dgibson@bu.edu) with any questions.
BNORC Small Grant Recipients
(periodically updated)
| Adipose Tissue Biology and Nutrient Metabolism Core | |
| Investigator | Project Title |
| Matthew Layne | Role of ACLP in Adipocyte Determination and Fibrosis |
| Alice Lichenstein | Tissue Inflammation in the Ossabaw Pig and Human Adipose Tissue |
| Barbara Nikolajczyk | Does salt drive a human immune profile in a mouse model of obesity? |
| Cafer Ozdemir | Regulation of Egr1 translation in human adipocytes |
| Rucha Patel | Biosynthetic Regulation of a novel class of lipids with anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory effects |
| Richard Taylor Pickering | Adipose tissue fibrosis, liver stiffness, and circulating markers of collagen metabolism |
| Kristy Townsend | Investigation of the neural innervation of adipose depots |
| Yan Zhu | Novel mechanism linking Retinol-Binding Protein 4 to insulin resistance |
| Epidemiology and Genetics Core | |
| Investigator | Project Title |
| Ying Bao | Obesity, physical activity and gastric and esophageal cancers |
| Rachel Bleiweiss-Sande | An investigation of the role of processed foods in Children’s Health |
| Paulette Chandler | Body weight and physical activity at time of cancer diagnosis and all-cause mortality |
| Mengxi Du | Ultra-Processed Food Consumption and Obesity Risk in Children and Adolescents: A Prospective Cohort Study |
| Meghan Garvey | The Associations between Bone Health, Physical Activity, and Body Composition |
| Arielle Korn | Validating a novel multi-method survey to assess Stakeholder-driven Community Diffusion of childhood obesity prevention efforts |
| Lynn Moore | Yogurt, Blood pressure and Cardiovascular Risk in Three Prospective Cohorts |
| Mercedes Sotos Prieto | Feeding America’s Bravest: Mediterranean Diet-Based Interventions to change Firefighters’ Eating Habits and Improve Cardiovascular Risk Profiles |
| Deirdre Tobias | Lifestyle Modifications from Menarche to First Pregnancy and Risk of Breast Cancer |
| Functional Genomics and Bioinformatics Core | |
| Investigator | Project Title |
| Z. Gordon Jiang | Single-cell driven spatial transcriptomics of nonalcoholic and alcoholic fatty liver disease |
| Benjamin Kugler | identification of Transcriptomic Changes in Dynamin Related Protein1 Depleted Obese Human Myotubes |
| Jennifer Lee | Molecular Basis for Enteroendocrine Cell Dysfunction in Type 2 Diabetes |
| Libin Liu | Adipocyte cellular lifespan turnover |
| Mary-Elizabeth Patti | Dissecting Epigenetic Mechanisms Responsible for Heptic Glucotoxicity |
| Guilio Romeo | Profiling of allopurinol-dependent transcriptome in obesity |
| Anna Santoro | Genes important for the metabolism of novel anti-diabetic and anti-inflammatory lipids |
| Francesca Seta | Role of Bcl11b in Vascular Function |
| Ismail Syed | A Novel Class of Mammalian Lipids as Potential Therapeutic Agents to Prevent Type 1 Diabetes and Promote beta-cell Survival |
| Andrew Wilson | Elucidation of Thyroid Hormone Signaling Mechanisms in Human Tissue |
| Kai Zou | Identification of Novel Transcriptomic Changes in Human Myotubes following Roux-en-Y gastic Bypass Surgery |
| Transgenic Core | |
| Investigator | Project Title |
| Sandeep Datta | Probing the Molecular Mechanisms of Lipid Detection |
| Young-Bum Kim | Generarion of a mouse model carrying a homozygous mutation of human ROCK1 gene using the Cas9-CRISPR system |
| Dong Kong | A Novel Method to Use CRISPR to Generate Conditional Gene-targeted Mice |
| Dong Kong | Use NgAgo Endonuclease System to Generate Gene-targeted Mice |
| Matthew Layne | Generation of a novel transgenic mouse line for studying adipose tissue fibrosis |
| Pavlos Pissios | Conditional deletion of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase |
| Susana Rovira-Llopis | Study of the mechanisms involved in exercise-induced adipokine secretion by generation of a CRISPR transgenic mouse |
Click here for the small grant application . Please fill out the information below and upload the completed application as a single PDF file. Please contact the Center Administrator for information.