Alexion Pharmaceuticals/ UConn Graduate Student Dissertation Improvement Award
Through a joint partnership with Alexion Pharmaceuticals, the Alexion/UConn Graduate Student Dissertation Improvement Award (GSDIA) is a program that supports graduate students at UConn/UConn Health whose research in basic biological processes or health applications contributes to discovery, innovation, or the development of products for diagnosis or treatment of rare diseases.
Alexion is a global leader in the development and delivery of breakthrough therapies for patients with severe and life-threatening rare diseases.
The GSDIA can be used for the investigation (including, but not limited to, equipment, consumables, services, conference attendance) of basic biological processes whose understanding could lead to the development of rare disease diagnostic or therapeutic products or for the development of prototypes, pre-clinical data, human clinical data, drug delivery platform/systems, large animal studies, or other advanced research in health applications for rare diseases. Two awards of $5000 each are available.
The Alexion Dissertation Improvement Award is open to all doctoral students who achieved candidacy during this or previous academic years and are expected to complete, defend their dissertation, and graduate this academic year (or proceeding academic year).
Criteria:
· Must be a fulltime graduate student at UConn or UConn Health
· Must be pursuing a graduate degree in a life sciences or biomedical related field
· Must be in good standing with the university with regards to all educational expectations of their respective department and/ or school
· Must be pursuing a graduate research project related to an area of research having to do with understanding the basic biology of, the diagnosis of, or the treatment of a rare human disease
· Must be nominated by a faculty member associated with their research project or thesis advisory team
· Must not be a graduate student associated with any ongoing clinical trial of an Alexion related therapy
· Must not be a graduate student currently doing an internship or employed by Alexion part time or full time
· Must not be a graduate student already receiving corporate support, involved with a clinical trial for, or doing an internship with, or employed by a direct competitor of Alexion.
Nomination Process
Nominations must be submitted to the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies or designee prior to the October 27th, 2017 submission deadline. Complete nomination packets, including all the required materials, must be submitted as a single PDF to research@uconn.edu.
Nomination packet should include:
· The student’s abstract of the dissertation (which should not 350 words)
· A short description of anticipated use of the award proceeds
· Detailed letters of nomination from student’s advisor, a member of the dissertation committee, and a third reader, which should address the student’s achievement and the potential impact on the scholarship or research of his or her field.
Award Selection
Office of Vice President for Research has appointed an award committee to review nominations. If the award committee judges that no nominations are outstanding, no awards will be given.
For more information, contact: Rowena Grainger at rowena.grainger@uconn.edu