AMED and NIAID implemented the first international collaboration call for applications and 13 R&D projects were awarded grants
The Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently identified 13 outstanding R&D projects submitted in response to a call for international collaborative applications focused on infectious diseases and immunology research.
This call was issued as part of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Medical Sciences Program (USJCMSP) to provide opportunities for early-career and female investigators to conduct international collaborative research on infectious diseases spreading in Asian countries. This project is a joint research program that AMED and NIH are conducting for the first time after concluding a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in 2015.
Nearly 30 applications were submitted and reviewed by joint Japanese-U.S. panels of expert scientists. Based on the results, AMED and NIAID decided to fund all 13 of the highly meritorious applications.
The award grantees were announced at the 19th International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in the Pacific Rim, which was held jointly by NIAID and AMED in collaboration with the local host agency, the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), from February 7-10, 2017, in Seoul, Korea.
For the future, AMED plans to put more effort into strengthening the implementation of international collaborative research.