Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center – 2025 Pilot Award Program
1-Page Concepts Due May 15, 2024
The Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center (PMHARC) supports innovative research at the intersection of HIV and mental health. We invite 1-page concepts for studies with clear potential to lead to larger funded research. Selected applicants will be invited to submit a 5-page application and receive consultation/mentoring from PMHARC Core Directors in formulating an application responsive to program goals.
Research approaches may include basic and pre-clinical studies, small feasibility trials, secondary analyses of large data sets, and qualitative and mixed methods research. Projects may also utilize samples and biologic and behavioral data stored in our biobank. Studies should be able to be completed in one year.
Additional information can be found on our website: https://www.med.upenn.edu/pmharc/pilots.html
Priority areas of research for 2025 pilots are projects which examine:
• Low intensity strategies for mental health symptom management among people with HIV
• Lifespan considerations for mental health and HIV
• Suicide prevention efforts among people with HIV
• Strategies to engage more people with HIV in mental health care in the Penn system
• Treatment or assessment of psychiatric disorders among people with HIV and co-occurring medical conditions
• Artificial intelligence
• Substrates of mental health symptoms among people with HIV using neuroimaging
• New crosscutting studies in molecular virology, metabolomics, chronobiology, and the microbiome
• Immune markers, cytokines and chemokines and other cellular markers in a variety of sites, including blood, bronchial lavage, CSF and other effusions
• Examination of the contribution of T-cells to HIV-induced disruption of mental health via regulation of neuroinflammation, viral invasion, HIV CNS clearance and neuropathogenesis
• Strategies to promote community engagement for promoting mental health of people with HIV
Funding amount: $20,000 – $40,000 plus no-cost services from the Community Engagement, Clinical Assessment, Biostatistics and Data Management, and Laboratory and Biobehavioral Marker Cores. Funds may be used for personnel, supplies and/or equipment. Use of appropriate PMHARC Core services is strongly encouraged and will be viewed as responsive to this announcement. http://www.med.upenn.edu/pmharc/cores.shtml
Eligibility: Projects must be led by a member of the Penn Faculty (including Instructors). Post Docs and Senior Fellows at Penn are eligible with a faculty sponsor. Projects must include both established and early stage investigators. We encourage applications from investigators new to the field of HIV and/or mental health, as well as investigators from racial and ethnic groups under-represented in medicine and science.
Applications and Instructions: One-page concepts should include a brief statement of the problem, the hypotheses to be tested or questions to be explored, methods, sample size, and PMHARC, NIMH, EHE, or OAR priorities to be addressed. Biosketches for Principal and Co-Investigators and total budget estimate are also requested. Please contact us to discuss your idea and how to develop it into a competitive concept.
Submit 1-page concepts by May 15th to: https://redcap.link/pmharc
Full applications for selected concepts will be due September 20, 2024. Final selection of pilots will be announced in early November, at which time pilot investigators must secure IRB approval to allow funding for awarded projects to begin February 1, 2025.
For more information please contact Chelsea Voytek, MPH at chelseav@pennmedicine.upenn.edu or Lily Brown, PhD, Director of Developmental Core at lilybr@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.