NBF Announces Recipients of 2022 Scientific Research Grants; Application Period Opens for 2023 Cycle

AABB’s National Blood Foundation (NBF) recently announced the recipients of the 2022 early-career Scientific Research Grants. Susan R. Conway, MD; Mark N. Lee, MD, PhD; Yunfeng Liu, PhD; Mara Pavel-Dinu, PhD; W. Alton Russell, MS, PhD; and Liang Zheng, PhD, will each receive a grant of up to $75,000 to further a one- or two-year research project. These are the latest researchers to receive funding from the NBF, which has fueled early-career research in the fields of transfusion medicine and biotherapies for almost 40 years.

“On behalf of the NBF Scientific Research Congrats Review Committee, I want to congratulate our 2022 grant recipients on this accomplishment,” said Committee chair Jim Gorham, MD, PhD. “These promising early-career investigators now join a prestigious group of researchers whose NBF-funded research projects have helped push forward the boundaries of transfusion medicine for 40 years.”

AABB and the NBF congratulate this year’s awardees. This year, the grants will fund research in the following areas:

• “Harnessing the naïve T-cell compartment to generate multi-antigen-specific SARS-CoV-2-specific T-cells” (Conway).
• “Identification of T cell epitopes in hemophilia patients with inhibitors using next-generation mapping technologies” (Lee).
• “Mechanisms of interferon activation and mononuclear phagocyte expansion in sickle cell disease” (Liu).
• “Discovery of mechanisms supporting the long-term regenerative potential of CRISPR/Cas9 – AAV6 genome targeted human hematopoietic stem cells” (Pavel-Dinu).
• “Tailoring blood donation intervals to individual risk in South Africa, the Netherlands, and the United States” (Russell).
• “Ankrd26, Thrombocytopenia 2 and TTP” (Zheng).

Additionally, the application period for the 2023 cycle of the early-career Scientific Research Grants Program opened Friday, July 1. The NBF awards grants to early-career scientists engaged in original research in an area related to blood banking, transfusion medicine, biotherapies or patient blood management.

The NBF Scientific Research Grants Review Committee evaluates grant applications on scientific merit, focus and appropriateness to the scope of funding, and likelihood of yielding meaningful data. Additional information about the eligibility criteria, application process and previous recipients is available on the NBF Early-Career Scientific Research Grants Program web page.

The application deadline is Dec. 1. AABB encourages early-career researchers worldwide to apply.