Pilots

UofL has a great record of successfully transitioning from pilot funding to external research funding.  COBRE Pilot funding will be for at most two years, and we have a process to choose the next pilot project awardees.  A second year of pilot funding will be conditional on sufficient progress during year one, and will be competitive. The Pilot Program is designed to provide funding to: 1) junior investigators, who do not have current R01 funding; and 2) established investigators, who propose projects that represent a change in direction for their research.

New Pilot awardees are:

• HCC and immunologically relevant protumor mRNA and miRNA transcriptomes.
  PI: Joshua L. Hood, MD, PhD
  Pharmacology and Toxicology
  joshua.hood@louisville.edu

Prior Pilot awardees are:

• Project 1: Epigenetic regulation of inflammatory chemokines in alcoholic liver disease
  Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
  PI: Smita Ghare, PhD

• Project 2: Anti-carcinogenetic mechanism of FGF21 in early stage of hepatocellular carcinoma
  Surgery
  PI: Yan Li, MD, PhD,

• Project 3: Dietary Copper-fructose Interactions Alter Gut Microbiome/Metabolome in a Sex-variable Manner Contributing to the Development of NAFLD
  Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
  PI: Ming Song, MD, PhD

Requests for new pilot projects related to the Hepatobiology and Toxicology COBRE will be announced as monies become available.