Applicants may request funding for pilot studies or for research projects.
The fundamental aim of this grant program is to understand the biology underlying the psychiatric disease anorexia nervosa, with the goal of accelerating progress toward prevention and treatment. The Klarman Foundation funds projects to research the biology of this disease and the questions of how and why it develops and persists.
The Foundation seeks to fund well-controlled, sufficiently powered studies asking important questions about the interface between behavior/cognition and neurobiology. Approaches that incorporate neurobiology with an up-to-date understanding of the symptoms and dysfunction associated with anorexia nervosa are encouraged.
Moving from Genes to Mechanism:
Research to strengthen the connections between the epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, and molecular biology of this disease, and to identify the mechanisms through which genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors lead to disease are encouraged. An anorexia nervosa genome-wide association study was published in Nature Genetics in July of 2019, involving approximately 17,000 AN cases in total and including nearly 13,000 cases from the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI), an initiative of The Klarman Family Foundation. The Foundation encourages applications to build on these GWAS results.
Proposals may be submitted for human studies or for animal model studies:
Collaborative Projects: https://klarmanfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020.ED_.RFA_.pdf#page=2.
Resource Sharing: https://klarmanfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020.ED_.RFA_.pdf#page=2.
The Foundation is enthusiastic about attracting researchers with a strong track record in another field who can bring a new approach to eating disorders research. Bringing in investigators from other fields, such as those studying the neuro-circuitry of complex, motivated behavior (e.g. fear conditioning, reward behavior, and addiction research), remains a priority.
