GOSH Charity and LifeArc launch £1M grant scheme

London, UK, December 3, 2018: Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH Charity) and LifeArc, a leading UK medical research charity, today announce the launch of a new joint funding scheme: ‘Translational Research Accelerator Grants’ open primarily to research active health professionals at GOSH. Much of the research performed at GOSH and its dedicated research partner, the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) is focused on understanding rare diseases that affect children. This new grant scheme will support researchers to translate their findings into practical benefits for patients by delivering new therapeutics or diagnostics.

A total fund of £1 million is available and is expected to support several grants, each lasting up to three years. Collaborations with industry and other academic partners will also be encouraged. Funded projects will address a rare disease medical need, have a strong scientific rationale, credible delivery plan and have the potential to deliver clinical impact for the patient population at GOSH.

GOSH Charity and LifeArc will run workshops to provide further information and to assist candidates with their applications. The first workshop will be held in February 2019.

Find out more information about the Translational Research Accelerator Grants and the application process

Welcoming the scheme Dr Catriona Crombie, Philanthropic Fund manager, LifeArc, said;

“LifeArc’s main goal is to move innovative life science research further along its development path towards the patients who so desperately need effective treatments. LifeArc’s philanthropic activity has a particular focus on rare diseases. GOSH, with its unique patient population, wealth of expertise and aligned goals, is our ideal partner for this project.”

LifeArc is a medical research charity with over 25-years’ experience in helping scientists and organisations turn their research into effective diagnostics and treatments. LifeArc collaborates with a wide range of life science charities and other partners. In addition to early stage research funding, LifeArc also offers its partners expertise in; liaison with technology transfer offices, IP protection, diagnostics development, drug discovery, portfolio review, scientific scouting, campaigning, licensing opportunities, drug discovery pipeline, in vitro diagnostics and antibody engineering.