New Your Community Trust: The Heiser Program for Research in Leprosy

To provide support to scientists to allow them to contribute to the global goal of leprosy elimination. In particular, we are interested in:
(1) the application of new and available tools for diagnosis and better understanding of transmission and the extent of drug resistance; (2) the mechanisms of nerve damage and reactions and the means to predict and to prevent leprosy;
(3) more effective chemoprophylaxis, immunoprophylaxis, and rapid bactericidal drugs;
(4) understanding of the organism, its origins, its pathogenicity, and immunological spectrum.
Other areas of importance are the use of the genome of M. leprae to develop new drug targets and the identification of immunologically important molecules.
Funding: $70K over 2 years ($35K/year). In exceptional circumstances, the Scientific Advisory Committee will consider letters of intent for larger awards for multi-year/multi-component/multi-institute projects involving leprosy research in endemic sites. http://www.nycommunitytrust.org/TheHeiserProgram/tabid/399/Default.aspx