Developmental Disabilities
After 21 years, the John Merck Scholars Program in the Biology of Developmental Disabilities has ended. The last awards were made in May 2011. While proud of the Scholars Program’s extraordinary record of support for talented young researchers in the neurological sciences, the Fund is shifting the Developmental Disabilities Program to support research that has the potential for a more immediate impact on people with developmental disabilities and their families.
The goal of the Developmental Disabilities Program during its last decade is to ensure that children with developmental disabilities and their families are benefiting from new research collaborations that bridge basic and clinical science, more rapidly translate findings into treatment settings, and promulgate the best clinical practices.
Starting in 2012, the Fund is launching the Developmental Disabilities Translational Research Program. It will award $1 million research grants over four years ($250,000 per year) to Principal Investigators at any career stage who have a deep commitment to developing treatments and improving outcomes for children with developmental disabilities, with a special focus on Down and Fragile X syndromes. Award criteria and application guidelines will be available by mid-February 2012 on the Fund’s website (http://www.jmfund.org/jm_scholars_program.php).
A second initiative, the Research to Clinical Practice Program, will begin in 2013. Its objective will be the identification and dissemination of gold-standard diagnostic and treatment protocols for Down and Fragile X syndromes. The program hopes to motivate scientists and clinicians to work together across disciplines. Dissemination will be implemented via several pathways, most notably through the member centers of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD).
A Scientific Advisory Board consisting of distinguished experts in research and treatment of developmental disabilities is overseeing both programs.
Previous Program
The John Merck Scholars Program in the Biology of Developmental Disabilities in Children supported research into the underlying neurobiology of developmental disabilities and associated cognitive impairments from 1990 to 2011. Its goal was to gain insights that eventually might lead to breakthroughs in prevention and treatment.
See the list of John Merck Scholars
2011 Grants
John Merck Scholars Program in the Biology
of Developmental Disabilities in Children
|
$10,000 |
| To support research in synaptic plasticity underlying experience-dependent development by John Merck Scholar finalist Stephan Van Hooser. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on dissecting the function of macaque prefrontal face patches by John Merck Scholar Doris Tsao. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on the role of tuberous sclerosis proteins in axon development by John Merck Scholar Mustafa Sahin. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research into functional dissection of the central cholinergic system in cognition by John Merck Scholar Adam Kepecs. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on neural circuits for multisensory decisionmaking by John Merck Scholar Anne Churchland. |
|
$10,000 |
| To support research on the effects of the chemical and social environments on reading impairment by John Merck Scholar finalist Kimberly Noble. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on the development of magnitude reasoning, including normative and atypical trajectories, by John Merck Scholar Stella Lourenco. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on the role of glia and the complement cascade in the refinement of developing neural circuits by John Merck Scholar Beth Stevens. |
|
$75,000 |
| To study functional analyses of a neural circuit regulating olfactory learning by John Merck Scholar Yun Zhang. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research into the exploratory behaviors of at-risk infants by John Merck Scholar Laura Schulz. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on activity-dependent regulation of GABAergic synapses and neural circuit plasticity by John Merck Scholar Yingxi Lin. |
|
$75,000 |
| To support research on social attention and word learning in typical development and autism spectrum disorders by Michael Frank. |
|
$10,000 |
| To support research on elucidating protein synthesis defects in Fragile X Syndrome using new molecular tools by John Merck Scholar finalist Michael Lin. |
|
$10,000 |
| To support research on genetic dissection of CNS wiring specificity in development and disease by John Merck Scholar finalist Andrew Huberman. |
|
$75,000 |
| To research how selective attention deficits contribute to language processing disorders by John Merck Scholar Lisa Sanders. |
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