Weekly round-up #196
VALIDATE funding for TB researchers
Thanks to our Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding, we are delighted to announce that we have opened two new grant opportunities for members working on tuberculosis:
- Pump-priming grants: pump-priming grants are available for projects of up to £50,000 (plus up to 15% indirect costs) via competitive application. Projects should run for a maximum of 12 months and should lead to relevant and useful data for the field, or produce pilot data that will lead to a larger grant application to an external funder. Projects must be scientifically excellent, and fall within the VALIDATE remit.
- Please visit our website for further details on this call. Deadline 7 March 2022
- Training grants: Early Career Researcher training grants are available of up to £3500, to help researchers take advantage of training opportunities that will contribute to their continuing professional development. This can include (but is not limited to): attendance at courses or workshops, laboratory exchanges, and work shadowing. Attendance at an international conference to present a talk or poster is also eligible for LMIC members.
- Please visit our website for further details on this call. Deadline 7 March 2022
- Q&A Sessions: We will be running two virtual Q&A sessions where you can ask any questions you have about the VALIDATE Pump-priming and Training Grant calls. Please contact VALIDATE if you would like to attend, to be sent the meeting link:
- 1000 GMT, 6 January 2022
- 1600 GMT, 11 January 2022
We realise that these calls being only for TB research will be disappointing to our non-TB focused members. The VALIDATE Management Team highly value the cross-pathogen USP of VALIDATE and we are continuing to pursue all avenues for further funding that can focus on our other three pathogen researchers as well.
BCG Adventures on Steam
Just over a week ago, we launched Albert and Camille's Little Lille Adventure on the gaming platform STEAM and have so far been very happy with the response with at least 1,500 (so far) people playing the game! Tomorrow, we will launch Welcome to Your Immune System on the same platform and hope to emulate the success of the Little Lille Adventure.
Please help continue the success of these fun educational games by:
- Playing the game on STEAM and giving us a good review!
- Sharing the links to the game via social media!
For those who are (understandably) not on STEAM you can still play the games on our website and help us spread the word using the Promotion Pack.
- MRC Infections and Immunity Programme Grant - UK-based research into infectious human disease and disorders of the human immune system - deadline 12 January 2021
- Identification and Characterization of Persistence Mechanisms of Select Protozoan Pathogens - Funding to expand our understanding of protozoan parasite persistence mechanisms and provide research tools and strategies to enable identification and credentialing of novel treatments for persistent protozoan pathogens - deadline 22 February 2022
- Global Learning Scholarship Program - Providing opportunities for scientists and researchers from LMICs to access the latest ideas, science, technology and partnerships to make a positive impact on fighting global disease - various deadlines throughout 2022
You can find a list of all relevant external funding we've spotted for our members on our external funding page.
Training Opportunities and Events:
Find more training and events opportunities on our Training and Events pages.
- Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA, deadline 17 January 2021
- Assistant Professor without Tenure, Department of Pediatrics, CGIDR, University of Washington, Seattle WA, USA, no stated deadline
- Associate Professor or Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology x 2, LSHTM, London UK, deadline 31 January
There are many more relevant career opportunities on our jobs page.
- Structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Cya, an evolutionary ancestor of the mammalian membrane adenylyl cyclases, Mehta V et al, in bioRxiv
- Sensitive and specific serodiagnosis of tegumentary leishmaniasis using a new chimeric protein based on specific B-cell epitopes of Leishmania antigenic proteins, Galvanai NC et al including member Eduardo Coelho, in Microbial Pathogenesis
- Characterization of immunoglobulin and cytokine responses in Burkholderia mallei infected equids, Saini S et al, in Microbial Pathogenesis
Check out our Publications Page for members' publications and email VALIDATE@ndm.ox.ac.uk if you have a paper you would like us to include.
Highlights on Twitter this week:
Nature Careers had some advice for joining research consortiums and shared the experience of a researcher in a hotel during lock down. WriteThatPhD had 66 tips for organising a manuscript and 30 tips to help you write a publication concisely. We let people know about the Launch of Welcome to Your Immune System on the Steam (and celebrated over 1,000 people playing the Little Lille Adventure). TBNewsDaily shared a news story about untangling the immune response to vaccines (including BCG) and a BBC World Service audio story on the impact of the COVID pandemic on TB and HIV. Stay up to date with all the relevant news and opportunities by following @NetworkVALIDATE on Twitter.
Published: 8 December 2021
