New applications for funding in these and other major programs are no longer accepted as The Whitaker Foundation will complete its mission and close in 2006. For the next two years, the foundation will continue to manage existing grants, convene research and education meetings, and conduct program assessments.

In the final round of research grants, 44 new awards totaling $10 million went to 34 colleges and universities in the United States. The 2003 awards were made from a pool of 334 applications, the largest number ever received during a single grant cycle. The Scientific Review Committee, charged with evaluating new research grant proposals, drew on the expertise of 20 guest reviewers to make their recommendations for funding.

Jennifer Elisseeff, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University, was one of the last young investigators to receive a grant from the foundation. She said there was “a lot of drama”leading up to the award letter she received.

“This is an important building block for establishing a laboratory,” she says. “I’ve been here two and a half years, and this is a critical time for finding and funding the best students and fellows.”

Elisseeff is working on a way to inject joints with specially designed mixtures of polymers, cells, and growth stimulators that solidify and form healthy tissue. This is a different approach from most research in tissue engineering, which uses a scaffold on which to grow human tissue for transplant. If successful, Elisseeff’s approach would be less invasive and less expensive. Her underlying research focuses on applying the principles of developmental biology to tissue engineering, using bone-marrow-derived stem cells to grow cartilage in an environment that mimics natural development.

The final round of Research Grants also funded a range of other basic research topics, such as bringing a bioengineering perspective to the human immune system. It also funded research in traditionally supported areas, such as imaging, surgical strategies and instruments, postural control, and lower back stability.

This year also saw the final round of competition for Graduate Fellowships for Biomedical Engineering Students. A record 419 students applied for fellowships during this final competition. The awards went to 22 students at 13 universities. To review the large number of applications, the foundation brought in 22 reviewers, the largest number in the history of the program. Fellowships are designed to help especially talented individuals develop the skills required for a successful career in biomedical engineering. Since the start of the program in 1992, a total of 414 fellowships have been awarded. This represents a total of more than $53 million toward advanced biomedical engineering education.

Industrial Internships concluded with six awards to Boston University, Case Western Reserve University, Michigan Technological University, University of Michigan, University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University. Three of the six institutions had received previous internship awards: Boston, Case Western, and Vanderbilt.

In the final round of construction grants, the foundation approved awards totaling $24 million to six universities. These building construction awards leveraged other grants and gifts totaling about $90 million.

The Whitaker Foundation’s Teaching Materials Program produced a tissue engineering textbook, published in 2003 by Pearson Prentice Hall. Co-authors Bernhard Palsson and Sangeeta Bhatia had used their grant to complete a 407-page book, Tissue Engineering, on a complex field that holds great promise for repairing or replacing damaged organs.

The book is aimed at both undergraduate and graduate students in biomedical engineering. Tissue engineering combines basic biological sciences with engineering fundamentals, clinical aspects, and biotechnology, all of which are covered at a basic level in the text. The foundation ended the year with the final applications in hand for teaching materials awards. The last awards in this program will be made in 2004.

The foundation will continue to make new grants in three areas:

Transitional Funding bridges the time between the end of the Whitaker Research Grant and the beginning of major support from another source. Qualified principal investigators on Whitaker Research Grants may apply. The last day for receiving requests is December 31, 2004.

NIH Summer Internships will be supported through 2004. The program enables undergraduate biomedical engineering students to conduct research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md.

Conference Awards will be made until the middle of 2005. Supported conferences enhance the field of biomedical engineering in new or innovative ways.

For details on these programs and how to apply for funding, click here.