You redefine what is possible in patient care and biomedical science

DGSOM faculty elucidate biological processes and solve medical mysteries, gaining the insights necessary to heal humankind—one breakthrough at a time. Find the resources you need to fuel research regardless of your career level or line of inquiry.

K Program

Training program for junior faculty (including clinical instructors) at UCLA and partner institutions. It also provides a K Bridge award for those who applied for a K award and received competitive scores. 
See more about the K program
 

R Bridge Award

This is for new investigators who received a competitive score on their first R01 award. 
See more about the K Bridge Award

We provide support on research initiation, laboratory set-up, growth of research program, staffing, contract and grant strategy, and regulatory and compliance support. To initiate the process, please email Laura Benscoter.

Dean’s Physician-Scientist Leadership Academy

DGSOM’s in-house program to develop holistic leadership competencies of the current and future generations of MD scientists.

Career coaching and counseling

As a junior faculty, you may schedule a 30-min counseling call to discuss your career plans and mentorship needs. For more information, please email Physician-Scientist Program for office hours and appointments.

Funding Opportunities

Seed Grant Program: An effort to promote the assembly of new teams of scientists that are well-positioned to perform innovative, high-impact research and ultimately compete for large team science grants from federal agencies and private foundations.

Keck Foundation Award: To develop a novel strategy for promoting and supporting high-impact biomedical research, the W. M. Keck Foundation made a gift to the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) aimed at supporting junior faculty in the DGSOM and in other schools engaged in biomedical research at UCLA.

Drown Foundation Award: Two years of research support to a promising MD (not MD-PhD) assistant professor who is within her or his first six years as a faculty member.

UCLA Internal Funding Opportunities

Find funding opportunities from across the UCLA and UCLA Health Sciences ecosystem.

Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute Seed Grant

Anticipated Due Date

Amount: $30,000

The UCLA Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute (CDI) Seed Grants provides awards of up to $30,000 for one year for junior faculty conducting child health research to generate preliminary data needed for subsequent applications to federal and private funding agencies. Eligible faculty for Principal Investigator must hold a primary appointment in the Department of Pediatrics at the level of Clinical Instructor, Assistant Professor, or Associate Professor. At least one Co-Investigator must be a faculty member whose primary appointment is outside the Department of Pediatrics. Substantive collaboration with multiple UCLA schools and departments is emphasized for this award. The CDI, established in 2013 at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, encourages innovative and multidisciplinary child health research and research training at UCLA across the spectrum of basic, translational, clinical, and health services research.

CNSI Noble Family Innovation Fund Seed Funding Program

Anticipated Due Date: April

Amount: $250,000

The  Noble  Fund  will  focus  on  identifying,  supporting  and  accelerating high-risk, high-reward research, from basic to translational, with promise for commercialization and societal impact. Our goal is to create a model for academic research and entrepreneurship that enables strategic investment to seed discoveries that have the potential to be translated for the public good.

DGSOM Seed Grant

Anticipated Due Date: July

Amount: $250,000

The David Geffen School of Medicine Research Themes have been charged with increasing the impact of basic, translational, clinical, and community research at UCLA in high-priority and broadly defined research areas; our aim is to promote the assembly of teams of researchers that are well-positioned to perform innovative, high-impact research and ultimately compete for large team science grants from federal agencies and private foundations.

Faculty Career Development Award

Anticipated Due Date: April

Amount: $15,000

This research funding is provided to assist faculty as they advance an on-going research project, creative activity, or as they embark on a new project, with emphasis in equity, diversion and inclusion.

Global Health Seed Grant

Anticipated Due Date: October

Amount: $50,000

The primary goals of this Seed Grant Program are to: (1) support multidisciplinary teams of faculty from across schools and departments to perform research in low- and middle-income countries; (2) establish or further build global research partnerships that address pressing health questions; and (3) build the capacity of early career researchers at both UCLA and global partner sites.

Keck Junior Faculty Grant

Anticipated Due Date: July

Amount: $500,000

The goal of the W. M. Keck Foundation Junior Faculty Awards is to support outstanding early career scientists who are 4-6 years into their first assistant professor position.

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) Interdisciplinary Seed Grant

Anticipated Due Date: Any time

Amount: $40,000

This program of the Cousins Center for PNI, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior is an open application with submissions welcomed at any time, and supports new and innovative research in the area of brain, behavior and immunity that builds bridges between basic biomedical science and clinical sciences.

SPORE, Brain Cancer, Developmental Research Program

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $50,000

The Developmental Research Program encourages high risk/high impact projects that take advantage of new research opportunities in the brain cancer research field and promote multidisciplinary collaboration between basic, preclinical and clinical programs.

SPORE, Brain Cancer, Career Enhancement Program

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $50,000

The Career Enhancement Program supports M.D. or Ph.D. junior faculty and established researchers who wish to commit their research interests to or refocus on translational approaches in the brain cancer research area. Exceptional postdoctoral fellows with plans to transition to a faculty position within a year may also apply but must submit a letter from an institution supporting their transition to faculty.

SPORE, Prostate Cancer, Developmental Research Program

Anticipated Due Date: June

Amount: $50,000

The Developmental Research Program supports pilot projects focusing on innovative and interdisciplinary translational research with emphasis on high risk/high impact projects that take advantage of new research opportunities in the prostate cancer research field and promote multidisciplinary collaboration between basic, preclinical and clinical programs.

SPORE, Prostate Cancer, Career Enhancement Program

Anticipated Due Date: June

Amount: $50,000

The Career Enhancement Program supports M.D. or Ph.D. junior faculty and established researchers who wish to commit their research interests to or refocus on translational approaches in the prostate cancer research area. Exceptional postdoctoral fellows with plans to transition to a faculty position within a year may also apply, but must submit a letter from an institution supporting their transition.

UC Drug Discovery Consortium Grant

Anticipated Due Date: June

Amount: $50,000

This early-stage funding helps accelerate projects to a position of seeking advanced stage funding or investment to advance the creation of drugs that address important unmet medical needs.

Global Health Seed Grant Program

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: Varies

Formerly known as the UCLA AIDS Seed Grant Program. Each year the AIDS Institute provides seed funding to support specific projects, the work of particular labs, and to cover part or all of the salaries of newly recruited faculty members.

UCLA Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Grant

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $35,000

The UCLA Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Pilot and Feasibility Studies provides funding for high quality and innovative research in the biology, function and diseases of the digestive system, with emphasis on receptor and signal transduction mechanisms, brain-gut interactions, gastrointestinal and pancreatic physiology, pathophysiology and inflammation, and mechanisms underlying diseases of the digestive system.

UCLA TDG Innovation Fund - Therapeutics Track Grant

Anticipated Due Date: April

Amount: $200,000

Focusing on advanced therapeutics, medical devices/diagnostics, and digital health technologies, the UCLA Innovation Fund speeds technologies from idea to market, bridging the funding gap between academia and industry.

UCLA TDG Innovation Fund - MedTech Track Grant

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $200,000

Focusing on advanced therapeutics, medical devices/diagnostics, and digital health technologies, the UCLA Innovation Fund speeds technologies from idea to market, bridging the funding gap between academia and industry.

UCLA/UCSD Diabetes Research Center Grant

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $50,000

The UCLA/UCSD Diabetes Research Center Pilot & Feasibility Projects mechanism will fund innovative new projects that will explore the feasibility of novel testable concepts and enhance the endocrine/diabetes research scope within the institutions, with a special emphasis on promoting promising junior faculty involved with diabetes research.

VCR Racial and Social Justice Seed Grant

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $30,000

These Racial and Social grants are designed to help launch and support research projects demonstrably centered on exploring the sources and consequences of racial inequities and social justice, with the goal to facilitate investigators’ preparedness for attaining extramural funding.

VCR Transdisciplinary Research Acceleration Grant

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $30,000

The purpose of these grants is to catalyze transdisciplinary research and creative activities by supporting early stage projects with the specific goal of facilitating investigators’ chances for attaining extramural funding.

VCR Public Impact Award

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $10,000

The purpose of the awards is to recognize Senate faculty whose research and/or other creative work has had a significant scientific, social, cultural, political, or other form of public benefit (locally, nationally, or globally).

JCCC Fellowship Award

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $10,000 to $30,000

The goal of the Fellowship program is to provide research funding to Post-Doctoral Fellows and Graduate Students from all areas of cancer research, including basic, translational, and clinical and population science, with support and guidance to fellows so they can use it as a tool towards developing and submitting an NIH F-grant application.

SPORE, Brain Cancer, Career Enhancement Program

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $50,000

The Career Enhancement Program supports M.D. or Ph.D. junior faculty and established researchers who wish to commit their research interests to or refocus on translational approaches in the brain cancer research area. Exceptional postdoctoral fellows with plans to transition to a faculty position within a year may also apply but must submit a letter from an institution supporting their transition to faculty.

SPORE, Prostate Cancer, Career Enhancement Program

Anticipated Due Date: June

Amount: $50,000

The Career Enhancement Program supports M.D. or Ph.D. junior faculty and established researchers who wish to commit their research interests to or refocus on translational approaches in the prostate cancer research area. Exceptional postdoctoral fellows with plans to transition to a faculty position within a year may also apply, but must submit a letter from an institution supporting their transition.

Summer Mentored Research Fellowship

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $6,000

To provide funding to doctoral students during the summer in order to release them from outside UCLA employment and/or loan obligations that might delay progress in graduate study.

UCLA Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Grant

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $35,000

The UCLA Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Pilot and Feasibility Studies provides funding for high quality and innovative research in the biology, function and diseases of the digestive system, with emphasis on receptor and signal transduction mechanisms, brain-gut interactions, gastrointestinal and pancreatic physiology, pathophysiology and inflammation, and mechanisms underlying diseases of the digestive system.

JCCC Fellowship Award

Anticipated Due Date: May

Amount: $10,000 to $30,000

The goal of the Fellowship program is to provide research funding to Post-Doctoral Fellows and Graduate Students from all areas of cancer research, including basic, translational, and clinical and population science, with support and guidance to fellows so they can use it as a tool towards developing and submitting an NIH F-grant application.

 

UCLA Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Grant

Anticipated Due Date: March

Amount: $35,000

The UCLA Digestive Diseases Research Center Core Pilot and Feasibility Studies provides funding for high quality and innovative research in the biology, function and diseases of the digestive system, with emphasis on receptor and signal transduction mechanisms, brain-gut interactions, gastrointestinal and pancreatic physiology, pathophysiology and inflammation, and mechanisms underlying diseases of the digestive system.