The LAM Foundation Grant Program

In-cycle grant opportunity information

Letter of Intent

The first step in the process of a grant application to The LAM Foundation is to submit a Letter of Intent (LOI). The submission of an LOI is required for each grant category.

    • Application timeline for in-cycle grants:  TBD
    • Applicants must create a profile and be logged in to ProposalCentral to access The LAM Foundation’s LOI Form. We offer a step-by-step tutorial to aid applicants in navigating our online grant system.  Download Tutorial

Click to access grant website:  Visit ProposalCentral

Technical issues regarding ProposalCentral and the online application process should be directed to their customer support during normal business hours:
8:30 AM – 5:00 PM Eastern Time (Monday through Friday)
By phone (toll-free): 800 875 2562 (Toll-free U.S. and Canada)
or +1 703 964 5840 (Direct Dial International)
By e-mail: pcsupport@altum.com

The LAM Foundation’s 2025 research priorities, to advance our mission, are as follows:

      • Identification of new therapeutic agents or repurposing of existing agents with strong potential to benefit patients with LAM in the near term, alone, or in combination with mTOR inhibitors (sirolimus or everolimus)
      • Developing and/or refining preclinical models of LAM, including in vitro (cell, organoid), ex vivo (tissue, organ, PCLS) and/or intact animal models
      • Using existing data /databases, biomarkers, and/or human biospecimens to gain deeper insights into LAM disease pathogenesis, progression, hormonal influence, importance of comorbidities, and/or response to treatment

(The proposed research could be basic [discovery], translational, or clinical, and must have benefit to patients with LAM in a short time frame [3-5 years]. Proposals without a clear research hypothesis will not be considered responsive.)

For information about The LAM Foundation’s in-cycle grant application process or requirements, please contact:
Jenn Vinton
Grant Coordinator
jvinton@thelamfoundation.org

In-Cycle Research Grant Categories (The LAM Foundation will award grants based on the availability of funding.)

Pilot and Feasibility Research Award

    • Funding Level: Maximum of $50,000 may be requested.
    • Period: Up to 1 year of support is available.

The objective of this type of award is to provide funds to encourage the development and testing of new hypotheses and/or new methods in research areas relevant to LAM. The proposed work must be hypothesis generating or hypothesis testing, reflecting innovative approaches to important questions in LAM research or development of novel methods, and providing sufficient preliminary data to justify the Foundation’s support. Results from Pilot and Feasibility Grants should have the potential to lead to the submission of applications for funding from other agencies (e.g., NIH). The award is not intended to support the continuation of programs initiated under other granting mechanisms. An applicant may be an MD, DO, PhD, DVM or equivalent postdoctoral researcher, postgraduate medical trainee, junior faculty or established investigator. The LAM Foundation encourages applications from investigators new to LAM research who could contribute their knowledge and expertise.

Clinical Research Award

    • Funding Level: A maximum of $50,000 total may be requested.
    • Period: Up to one year of support is available.

The purpose of this grant is to generate hypothesis-driven, clinically focused patient-centered research that could improve our understanding of novel therapeutic areas of interest, test interventions, or develop clinical research methodologies. The grant is designed to enable research that has the potential to improve an unmet clinical need relevant to the care of LAM patients. A successful application must be feasible within 1 year and should have a high probability of generating tangible results, such as larger clinical trials, new approaches to or methods to analyze clinical trials, or new data that could be utilized in a natural history database. An applicant may be an MD, DO, PhD, DVM, or equivalent postdoctoral researcher, postgraduate medical trainee, junior faculty, or established investigator.

Application Details

    • Application timeline for 2025 in-cycle grants:  Please click here.  The LOI submission window opens on May 5, 2005. 
    • The LAM Foundation’s 2025 Request for Applications:  Please click here. 
    • The LAM Foundation process begins with a required Letter of Intent (LOI). High-scoring LOIs will be invited to submit full proposals. 
    • Only one LOI may be submitted by the same research laboratory or research group. 
    • ProposalCentral must be used for all steps of the LOI and proposal process. 
      • Applicants must create a profile and be logged in to ProposalCentral to access The LAM Foundation’s LOI Form. Click the following links for ProposalCentral’s own assistance: 
      • Technical issues regarding ProposalCentral and the online application process should be directed to their customer support during normal business hours: 

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM Eastern Time (Monday through Friday) 

By phone (toll-free): 800 875 2562 (Toll-free U.S. and Canada) 

or +1 703 964 5840 (Direct Dial International) 

By e-mail: pcsupport@altum.com 

For additional information or questions, contact Jenn Vinton, Grant Coordinator, at research@thelamfoundation.org. 

Out-of-Cycle Grant Opportunities

Bridge Funding

The LAM Foundation (TLF) considers proposals for bridge funding on a case-by-case basis. This is an out-of-cycle funding mechanism, and we anticipate that its use will be limited to special circumstances and will require adequate justification for the need of funding.

The primary purpose for bridge funding is to provide short-term bridge or “gap” funding for LAM researchers who have had previous federal or TLF funding and have an active LAM-focused research program/laboratory that faces uncertain funding for a limited time period. This opportunity is targeted towards Principal Investigators (PIs) that have an external grant under review and will exhaust current funding prior to the Notice of Award, requiring funds to sustain their program/laboratory, or have a previously submitted grant being prepared for resubmission but need funding to execute experiments or retain personnel during a funding gap.

Awards up to $75,000* in increments of $25,000 for a maximum period of one year will be considered for this mechanism. Funds cannot be used for PI salaries or travel and must be spent within one year. PIs who have received bridge funding within the past five fiscal years are not eligible to apply. Applications that satisfy these criteria will be reviewed for scientific merit by a panel comprised of at least three members of the TLF Scientific Advisory Board.

For more information about bridge funding and prior to submitting an application, please contact The LAM Foundation at research@thelamfoundation.org.

*The LAM Foundation’s ability to award grants is subject to available funding.

Prior Year Award Recipients

2023

    • Kathryn Wikenheiser-Brokamp, MD, PhD, — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati
      Established Investigator Award
      Identifying Cell-Cell Signaling Driving Pulmonary LAM Pathogenesis Using Spatial Omics Strategies 
    • Kanth Swaroop Vanka, PhD,— University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
      Career Development Award
      The Unexplored Role of Lung Macrophages in LAM Disease Pathogenesis

2022

    • Carmen Priolo, MD, PhD — Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
      Established Investigator Award
      Role of Lipid Homeostasis in LAM Progression
    • Chung-Wai Chow, MD, PhD, FRCPC — University of Toronto – University Health Network (UHN), Toronto, Canada
      Pilot Award
      Respiratory Oscillometry for Lung Function Monitoring in LAM
    • Sang-Oh Yoon, PhD — University of Illinois, Chicago
      Pilot Award
      Targeting Proteostasis Systems in LAM
    • Debbie Clements, PhD — University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
      Seed Grant
      Extracellular Matrix Drives Disease Progression and Rapamycin Insensitivity in LAM

2021

    • Minzhe Guo, PhD — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati
      Francis X. McCormack Career Development Award
      An Information Retrieval System for Multiomics Data Integration and LAM Biomarker Discovery
    • Issam Ben-Sahra, PhD — Northwestern University, Chicago
      Established Investigator Award
      The TSC-mTORC1 Network Controls Bicarbonate Uptake to Support Cell Growth
    • Yan Tang, PhD — Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
      Established Investigator Award
      Nanomedicine for Eliminating Rapamycin Tolerant Persister Cells
    • Rhonda Szczesniak, PhD — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati
      Pilot Grant
      Monitoring Risk of Rapid Lung Function Decline: The LAM Prediction (LAMP) Early Translation Study
    • Amy (Firth) Ryan, PhD — University of Iowa, Iowa City
      Seed Grant
      Interaction of Lymphatic Endothelial and LAM Cells Driving Lymphangioleiomyomatosis Pathogenesis
    • Yan Xu, PhD — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati
      Out-of-Cycle Award
      LAM Cell Atlas (LCA): An Intuitive Web Portal for Integrative Analysis and Visualization of LAM Single Cell Multiomics Data

2020

    • Simon Johnson, DM — University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
      Pilot Award
      Using Artificial Intelligence to Predict Need for Therapy in LAM
    • Katharina Maisel, PhD — University of Maryland, College Park
      Career Development Award
      Targeting Immune Suppression in Lymphangioleiomyomatosis Using Adjuvant Immunotherapy
    • Heng Jia Liu, PhD — Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
      Career Development Award
      Targeting the Immune Checkpoint Molecule B7-H3 in the Therapy of LAM

University of Pennsylvania Million Dollar Bike Ride

Since 2014, Penn Medicine Orphan Disease Center (ODC) has hosted the Million Dollar Bike Ride. The Million Dollar Bike Ride brings over 600 cyclists and volunteers to Penn’s campus to ride either 12, 33, or 73 miles starting in the city and ranging across the Greater Philadelphia region. All funds raised by Disease Teams through pledges are used by the ODC to expand the scope and depth of the pilot grant program. After the event, a Request for Application (RFA) is distributed to the international scientific community requesting pilot grant applications to study diseases for which designated money has been raised.

The ODC also procures philanthropic and corporate donations that are used to match dollar‐for‐dollar money raised by cycling participants for their particular diseases.

The LAM Foundation Easy Breathers Cycling Team, led by LAM patients and families, has been a staple of the Million Dollar Bike Ride since its inception. The Easy Breathers, UPenn, and The LAM Foundation have raised and awarded more than $880,000 to some of our most dedicated and recognized LAM scientists. Collaborations like the MDBR are how patients and families move scientific progress forward – these projects would have otherwise gone unfunded.

Previous Awards

2023
Yan Tang, PhD — Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Targeting immunosuppression in LAM

2022
Katharina Maisel, PhD — University of Maryland, College Park
Exploring adjuvant immunotherapy to treat lymphangioleiomyomatosis

2021
Yan Tang, PhD — Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Identify genetic regulatory circuitry driving the development of rapamycin tolerance

2020
Elizabeth Henske, MD — Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Role of CTHRC1 in the Pathogenesis and Therapy of LAM

Other Funding Mechanisms Relevant for LAM Investigators

TSC ALLIANCE

The TSC Alliance is dedicated to finding a cure for tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) while improving the lives of those affected. We invest in early-career researchers to drive innovative TSC research and to foster a diverse group of researchers dedicated to our shared mission. In 2023, we anticipate awarding three or four awards to postdoctoral fellows and early-stage investigators depending on merit, requested budgets, and funds available.

TUBEROUS SCLEROSIS COMPLEX RESEARCH PROGRAM (TSCRP)

The TSCRP supports innovative and high-impact research that promotes discoveries in TSC, from mechanistic insights to clinical application across all ages, by fostering new ideas and investigators for the benefit of Service members, their beneficiaries, and the American public.

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