RCSA Joins Forces with the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation to Create a New Series of Scialogs
Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) and the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation (FGCF) have entered into a collaboration to develop three distinct, multi-year Scialog conferences with specific themes in the general area of human disease and health.
Scialog is a blending of “science” and “dialogue.” Created in 2010 by RCSA, the Scialog program supports research, intensive dialog and community building to address scientific challenges of global significance. Within each multi-year initiative, Scialog Fellows come together to do high-risk, discovery research based on innovative ideas and communicate their progress in annual closed conferences. Scialog funding is aimed at early career scientists.
“We are excited that the Scialog platform we’ve developed is proving to be of value for RCSA and our partner foundations to advance fields of mutual interest,” said Dan Linzer, RCSA President and CEO. “The new partnership with the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation will significantly expand the Scialog program, and will enable us to catalyze creative, collaborative work among a larger array of early career scientists.”
The philanthropic collaboration will address fundamental challenges in biochemistry, biophysics, and related interdisciplinary areas that must be overcome to make significant progress on a wide range of diseases. Potential conference themes include:
- Precision engineering of proteins to ensure consistency in bioactivity and bioavailability (because of the growing use of protein pharmaceuticals);
- Selective transport of macromolecules across biological barriers (e.g., skin, gut, cell membrane, blood-brain);
- High-resolution, non-invasive imaging for improved diagnostics and treatment;
- Identification of biomarkers of cell types in development, differentiation, and disease.
RCSA and FGCF plan to enlist other co-sponsors in the support of these Scialogs. Each Scialog series is initially estimated to cost $3 million, with approximately $1 million being allocated to each of the three annual meetings, the first of which is planned for Spring 2020.
Previous or ongoing Scialog conferences have included such topics as Chemical Machinery of the Cell, Advanced Energy Storage, Solar Energy Conversion, and Time Domain Astrophysics.
Each Scialog theme results from consultation with senior research scientists across the country. A primary consideration in selecting a theme is the opportunity for major advances by bringing together communities of scientists that otherwise would not typically interact (e.g., physicists and biologists in the Molecules Come to Life series that concluded in 2017). The theme is developed into a series of three annual conferences that are held in Tucson, Ariz., with approximately 50 Fellows and 10 Facilitators at each of these conferences.
Each conference requires Scialog Fellows to form interdisciplinary teams, usually of two or three members, around ideas for research projects generated by their discussions at the three-and-a-half-day event. At the end of the conference, teams pitch their ideas to a committee of senior researchers who recommend funding based primarily on the potential for novel, out-of-the-box, cutting-edge and potentially high-impact results.
RCSA and FGCF are both 501(c) (3) private foundations, and both are based in Tucson. RCSA was founded in 1912 by UC Berkeley Professor of Chemistry Frederick Gardner Cottrell, inventor of the electrostatic precipitator. The device removes particulate matter from industrial smokestacks. FGCF was established by the company Research Corporation Technologies (RCT), which was spun off from RCSA as an independent entity in 1987. RCT has been exceptionally successful in nurturing early stage commercial development of biomedical technologies.
