Kelly Dooley, MD, PhD, MPH, Addison B. Scoville Jr. Professor of Medicine and director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has received a MERIT Award (Method to Extend Research in Time Award) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
According to the NIH, MERIT Awards provide long-term grant support to investigators “whose research competence and productivity are distinctly superior and who are highly likely to continue to perform in an outstanding manner.”
NIAID issues 15 MERIT Awards per year, providing researchers respite from competing for grant funding for periods of up to 10 years.
Dooley’s research is in tuberculosis therapeutics, clinical pharmacology of anti-infectives, HIV-tuberculosis co-treatment, and evaluation of HIV and TB drugs in priority populations such as children and pregnant women. The new grant serves to expand an ongoing international TB prevention trial to include pregnant women, children and people receiving certain drugs for HIV infection.
In a clinical trial sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Timothy Sterling, MD, professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at VUMC, and other investigators are testing a six-week regimen of daily rifapentine against the current standard of 12-16 weeks of rifamycin-based treatment for latent TB infection.
“This MERIT award will enable us to embed clinical pharmacology into the trial, which will allow us to confirm dosing of this new and much-needed TB prevention strategy in priority populations. Ultimately the goal is for this treatment, if successful, to be available for all, including those individuals around the world who are most vulnerable and most at risk for developing TB,” Dooley said. “I am very pleased to receive this generous support and recognition from NIAID for this work.”
MERIT Awards stem from NIH appraisal of applications for research project grants, known as R01s. Dooley’s MERIT Award stems from a recent five-year, $3.8 million NIAID grant to VUMC for her research project, “Short course rifapentine for TB prevention for all: clinical pharmacology matters.”
With this competitive grant having converted from an R01 to a MERIT Award (1R37AI184117), when the five-year funding period comes to an end, Dooley will be eligible to apply on a non-competing basis for a funding extension of up to five years.