The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation has announced grants totaling $7.8 million to support sixteen physician-scientists as they transition to clinical research.

The annual Clinical Scientist Development Awards competition provides support for early-career physician-scientists, enabling them to reserve three-quarters of their professional time for independent clinical research. This year, sixteen awardees will each receive $486,000 over three years to conduct research and establish a laboratory. The 2013 awardees are Gregory Beatty, M.D., Ph.D.; Catherine Blish, M.D., Ph.D.; Yee-Ming Chan, M.D., Ph.D.; Eric Collisson, M.D.; Stavros Drakos, M.D., Ph.D.; Shirit Einav, M.D.; Stephanie Eisenbarth, M.D., Ph.D.; Santhi Ganesh, M.D.; Karunesh Ganguly, M.D., Ph.D.; Johann Gudjonsson, M.D., Ph.D.; Neil Hanchard, M.D. Ph.D.; Adam Lauring, M.D., Ph.D.; Vinit Mahajan, M.D., Ph.D.; James Murrough, M.D.; Sandesh Sreenath Nagamani, M.D.; and Soumya Raychaudhuri, M.D., Ph.D.

In a departure from previous years, the 2013 CSDA competition did not require applicants to be nominated by their institutions. Instead, the foundation accepted pre-proposals directly from eligible junior faculty-level physician-scientists conducting clinical research in any disease area. Since 1998, the foundation has awarded grants totaling $94 million to 218 early-career physician-scientists through the program.

"For the clinical research workforce to remain strong, we must invest in the next generation of researchers," said Sindy Escobar-Alvarez, program officer for the DDCF Medical Research Program. "Supporting young physician-scientists as they transition to independence is especially important as they must juggle the responsibilities of conducting research with seeing patients."