ASH Bridge Grants Program Funds 19 Promising Biomedical Research Projects

(WASHINGTON, October 1, 2019)—ASH has announced the names of 19 investigators who have each been awarded $150,000 through the ASH Bridge Grant Program in 2019. Launched in April 2013 when funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was uncertain, ASH Bridge Grants serve as a one-year bridge for researchers with NIH-scored but not funded R01 grants.

While NIH has received support in recent years, the pace of scientific discovery still exceeds its resources: more promising grant applications are received each year than NIH can fund. The ASH Bridge Grant Program bolsters innovative hematologic research by giving investigators the financial support to keep their labs operating, retain staff, and continue their contributions to the biomedical research community as they work to refine their applications.

“We are in an exciting era for hematology, with the emergence of cutting-edge gene and cell therapies and treatments that are increasingly targeted to individual patient needs.” said ASH President Roy Silverstein, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin. “The ASH Bridge Grant Program is vital to advancing research underlying these and other innovative, life-saving therapies which we know have the potential to transform patient care and improve public health.”

To date, ASH has awarded over $17 million in Bridge Grant support to 134 investigators. More than 70 percent of these recipients have gone on to receive R01 grants from NIH within three years.

The projects supported this year by the ASH Bridge Grant Program include basic, translational, and clinical hematologic research, including work that will enhance our understanding of sickle cell disease pain, investigate the use of epigenetic rewiring to treat lymphoma, and explore the pathogenetic pathways of leukemia.

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) (www.hematology.org) is the world’s largest professional society of hematologists dedicated to furthering the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disorders affecting the blood. For more than 50 years, the Society has led the development of hematology as a discipline by promoting research, patient care, education, training, and advocacy in hematology. ASH publishes Blood (www.bloodjournal.org), the most cited peer-reviewed publication in the field, which is available weekly in print and online. In 2016, ASH launched Blood Advances (www.bloodadvances.org), an online, peer-reviewed open-access journal.

Contact:
Leah Enser, American Society of Hematology
lenser@hematology.org; 202-552-4927