AGA-Amgen Fellowship-to-Faculty Transition Award

Objective The objective of this AGA Research Foundation award is to provide funds to clinical and postdoctoral fellows to protect time dedicated to clinical or translational research to aid in their transition to independence. Projects must focus on the epidemiology, prevention, diagnosis, treatment or patient outcomes of a digestive disease or disorder.

Application requirements

• The proposed research must be relevant to gastroenterology, hepatology, pancreatology or other closely allied fields.
• AGA membership must be maintained throughout the two-year duration of the award.
• Applicants will be asked to self-assign their proposal to one of the following categories: Clinical: Research involving direct contact with human subjects or using clinical data to address problems related to the prevention, diagnosis, treatment or outcome of human diseases (e.g., clinical epidemiology). This category also includes research related to health care delivery (e.g., health services, health IT). Translational: Research focused on turning observations from the laboratory, clinic, and/or community into interventions that improve diagnostics and therapeutics. This category can involve human biospecimens or human data as resources for laboratory- or informatics-based investigation, or pre-clinical in vivo models provided they directly test human disease-relevant biology.
• Resources allocated through this award are intended to support the career development of the applicant. The applicant must allocate a minimum of 50 percent effort to the proposed project.
• Applicants are required to have a sponsor and mentor for the award; one individual may serve in the capacity of both positions. A sponsor (typically a division chief or department chair) is an individual who takes responsibility for the quality assessment of the proposed research project, the quality of the research environment within which the project will be undertaken, and the experience and expertise of the principal investigator and other key researchers involved. A mentor will supervise the principal investigator’s research activities ensuring timelines and deliverables and will work with the applicant to create a research career development plan.
• Applicants must submit a career development plan detailing their career goals and objectives. The plan should describe career development and training activities the applicant will pursue during the award period and provide a timeline for applying for faculty positions.
• The intent of this award is to protect time for research to facilitate generation of preliminary data and gain necessary experience to become more competitive for academic research appointments. Applicants whose proposed research activities overlap with aims already funded through a mentor’s grant must clearly delineate the scientific and experimental distinctions between their respective programs. This requirement applies to active grants and pending grants submitted by the mentor prior to review of this award or expected to be submitted during the term of the FFTA. It must also be clearly stated how the work submitted by the FFTA applicant is that of the applicant and not of the senior mentor(s).
• Biographical sketches for the applicant, mentor and other key personnel must be submitted.
• A complete research facilities and resources form.
• Upon notification of receipt of this award, the recipient must provide institutional approval from the appropriate committee for use of human subjects. Recipient must provide documentation from the appropriate regulatory committee if approval is not necessary.
• Recipients must submit scientific and financial progress reports to AGA annually and final reports 60 days after the end date of the award period. Report templates and instructions are provided to awardees at the time of acceptance. Second-year funding is contingent upon the submission and accuracy of this documentation.
• All publications, presentations and abstracts arising from work funded by this program must acknowledge support of the AGA Fellow-to-Faculty Transition Award.

Applicant eligibility

• Applicants for this award must hold an MD, PhD and/or equivalent degree (e.g., MBBS, MBChB, DO) and hold a clinical or postdoctoral fellow position at an institution in North America (United States, Canada or Mexico). Clinical fellows must be in the final year of fellowship training or those in the year following the end of their fellowship training at the time of application. Postdoctoral fellows must have at least four years and fewer than six years of postdoctoral research at the time of application and be actively preparing to seek faculty positions before this award concludes. Postdoctoral applicants must clearly describe their plan for establishing scientific independence from their current mentor(s) and plans – including timeline – for applying to faculty positions.
• Awards are intended for fellows and therefore applicants who have existing commitments for permanent faculty positions prior to the start date of the award are ineligible.
• AGA membership is required at the time of application submission. Please visit the AGA membership page or call 301-654-2055 for membership information.
• Applicants must have a mentor who is an AGA member at the time of application.
• Applicants performing exclusively basic research are ineligible.
• Applicants who are physician-scientists, female or from racial/ethnic groups underrepresented in biomedical research are strongly encouraged to apply.