Program Design: Applicants must be based at a Massachusetts not-for-profit research institution working as Principal Investigators on projects with translational potential and preliminary supporting data, but still require a key set of proof-of-concept experiments prior to attracting a commercial partner or spinning out into a new company.

  • Up to $3 million is available for the awards program
  • Each award is anticipated to be up to $300,000
  • Projects are anticipated to last about two years
  • There are no limits on the number of proposals that may be submitted by each non-profit institution, however, each individual Principal Investigator is asked to only submit one application

Program Eligibility

Eligible applicants must meet the following criteria:

  • Full or part time employee at a not-for-profit Massachusetts-based research institution
  • Researchers must be proposing as Principal Investigators a project that is focused on increasing our understanding of sex and gender differences in biology or developing solutions for diseases or conditions that affect women solely, disproportionately, or differently.
  • The project must have a human health focus with core technology and/or service in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical diagnostics or imaging, bioinformatics, digital health, genomics, nanotechnology, drug delivery, proteomics, regenerative medicine, etc.
  • Funding must be used to support an experiment or experiments that increase(s) the translational opportunity for the technology with a defined goal such as filing patents, securing a sponsored research agreement, attracting other industry support, etc.
  • The Applicant and Grantee institution must be in compliance with all other Center agreements, if any.

Review Process

Review Criteria: Applications will be reviewed by an external panel of scientists from academia and industry with expertise in women’s health and translating early-stage innovations. Applications will be reviewed based on the following categories:

  • Qualifications of the team
  • Use of funds
  • Value to our understanding of women’s health and the Massachusetts ecosystem
  • Proposed plan and approach to solving a key question in Women’s Health
  • Unmet need being addressed
  • Translational opportunities especially towards bettering the treatment of women’s health conditions

Funding

  • Allowable costs for MLSC funds: equipment, research supplies and reagents (no minimum dollar amount), purchase of hardware and software, data generated via core facilities, salaries (with fringe rate up to 30%), consultants, and overhead/indirect expenses.
    • Together salaries (with fringe rate up to 30%), consultants, and overhead/indirect expenses cannot exceed $100,000 and overhead/indirect expenses cannot exceed 15% of the direct costs ($39,130 for an award of $300,000).
  • Non-fundable expenses include: paying for operating costs such as utilities and activities funded by other funding sources.
  • Following execution of the grant agreement, funds will be provided on a reimbursement basis to the Awardees based on the terms of the Grant Agreement.
  • The MLSC reserves the right to adjust the requested amount of funding for each proposal.