LRF Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards Program

The Lymphatic Research Foundation is very proud of the LRF Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards Program which has been funding fellows since 2006. The goal of the fellowship program is to expand and strengthen the pool of outstanding junior investigators in the field of lymphatic research. The awards support investigators who have recently received their doctorates, a critical point in career development when young scientists choose their livelong research focus. To date the program has been very successful in that all of the young investigators have remained in the field of lymphatic research, a major goal of this program.

The Lymphatic Research Foundation is privileged to collaborate with The Medical Foundation, a division of Health Resources in Action (HRiA) who has been most supportive of our mission and has partnered with LRF to create and manage all aspects of the program. This year we were honored to have a distinguished Scientific Review Committee including; Mihaela Skobe, Ph.D (Mount Sinai School of Medicine) who served as Committee Chair; Michael Detmar, MD (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-Zurich); Mark Kahn, MD (University of Pennsylvania Medical Center); Jan Kitajewski, Ph.D (Columbia University Medical Center); Nancy Ruddle, Ph.D (Yale University School of Medicine); Melody Swartz, Ph.D (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne); and David Zawieja, Ph.D (Texas A & M Health Science Center).

We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2010 Grant Cycle for the funding period, July 1, 2010-June, 30, 2012 who have received two-year fellowships ranging from $39,500–$47,500 per year. (U.S. currency). Congratulations to our awardees:

Hélène Maby-El Hajjami, Ph.D, University Central Hospital and University of Lausanne, Switzerland, “Development of transcriptional differentiation approaches for treatment of lymphedema-distichiasis syndrome.”

Our prior awardees have researched and published in such diverse areas as imaging of lymphatic vessels, lymphangiogenesis, lymphatic contractibility by myosin light chain phosphorylation, the origin of lymphatic vasculature, multipotent adult progenitor cell derived lymphatic endothelial cells and RhoB's function in lymphatics. LRF Fellows have published in a diversity of publications including Nature, American Journal of Transplantation, Lymphatic Research and Biology, Journal of Physiology, Genes & Development, and Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and have presented at prestigious conferences including Gordon Research Conferences and at various vascular biology, experimental biology, lymphoid tissue, imaging, and immunology conferences held both nationally and internationally.

The next application deadline for the Lymphatic Research Foundation Awards Program will be in the Fall of 2011 for awards beginning on July 1, 2012. Visit http://www.hria.org/tmfservices/tmfgrants/lrf.html or www.lymphaticresearch.org for updates.

LRF's Dinner Dance—Save the Date

On October 28, 2010, the Lymphatic Research Foundation will be hosting a Dinner/Dance at The Old Westbury Golf and Country Club, Old Westbury, New York. For further information regarding sponsorship and journal ad opportunities, please contact the Lymphatic Research Foundation at (516) 625-9675.