Translational Medicine
Predoctoral Fellowship

Translational medicine is a scientific discipline focused on turning observations in the laboratory, clinic, and community into medicines, diagnostics, or other interventions that improve human health. Translational medicine fosters a patient-focused research cycle that stretches from the lab bench to the patient bedside and back to the lab again. This includes adapting hypothesis-driven basic research discoveries in cells, tissues, and animals for application in humans and then taking the knowledge of what did and didn’t work in the clinic back to the bench.

Given the breadth of the discipline, the PhRMA Foundation’s Translational Medicine Program focuses specifically on novel research that uses the “bedside to bench” approach to address unmet needs in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. The Foundation seeks research proposals that focus on identifying unmet clinical needs and developing new diagnostic, experimental, and computational approaches and technologies to improve patient care and management.

Applicants are encouraged to work with clinical collaborators to identify unmet clinical needs. Plans to corroborate results from model systems need to include methods to validate findings in human samples, subjects or patients and be documented in the proposal. Proposals should integrate innovative technologies, with advanced biological, chemical, diagnostic, and pharmacological sciences and engineering methodologies in areas that include but not are limited to:

• Genetics and Epigenetics (Molecular, Pharmaco-, Population, Medical)  
• Omics (Functional, Structural, Toxico-, Pharmaco-, Comparative)  
• Systems (Biology and Pharmacology) 
• Pathways and Networks  
• Integrative Biology  
• Modeling and Simulation  
• Target Identification and Validation  
• Biomarker Identification and Validation  
• Molecular Epidemiology  
• Imaging  
• Disease Modeling  
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Computational Approaches  

Preference is for studies where applicants collect human samples. For studies where the only human data is from a pre-existing biobank, the reasoning must be clearly stated in the research plan. 

Proposals that involve AI approaches (i.e., data-driven ML/DL) should clearly document and reference the methodology, explain the data curation process (sources, quality, quantity), and discuss the validation process. Expected pitfalls and alternative strategies should be described as well.

Note: Please ensure you are applying to the correct PhRMA Foundation program. If your project does not align with the goals of the Translational Medicine program, as outlined above, please review the PhRMA Foundation’s Drug Discovery and Drug Delivery programs to see whether your project fits into one of those programs. For research on health outcomes and health technology assessment, please apply to our Value Assessment and Health Outcomes Research program (opening in September 2025). Contact the PhRMA Foundation (info@phrmafoundation.org) with your project description if you need further clarification.

• Applicants (U.S. and non-U.S. citizens) must attend an accredited U.S. university as full-time, in-residence students.
• Individuals just beginning graduate school should not apply. Applicants will have completed most of their pre-thesis requirements (at least two years of coursework) and be engaged in thesis research as PhD candidates by the time the award is activated. Award activation can begin as early as January 1, 2026, or as late as August 1, 2026.
• Applicants who expect to complete their PhD before December 31, 2026, are not eligible.
• Applicants enrolled in MD/PhD programs should not be engaged in required clinical coursework or clerkships while the fellowship is active. Fellows are expected to devote full time (including summers) to their research.
• Predoctoral fellowships should not be seen as a way to fund the principal investigator’s currently funded research project.
• Applicants currently funded on an institutional training grant (e.g., NIH TL1, T32, T90, or T35 awards or a nonprofit/professional society equivalent) may apply if they state they will forgo the institutional training slot if funded by a PhRMA Foundation predoctoral award.
• Applicants are ineligible if they are the recipient of an NIH-F award.
• An individual may not simultaneously hold another funding mechanism providing stipend support while the PhRMA Foundation predoctoral fellowship is active. If necessary, the university may supplement the award to a level that is consistent with other predoctoral fellowships it offers.
• Only one predoctoral applicant per lab may apply for this award. If multiple applicants apply, they will automatically be ineligible. Potential applicants and their thesis advisors and/or lab managers should decide who should apply.
• The Foundation will not consider multiple applications for similar efforts on the same project. For instance, if a predoc, postdoc, and faculty member from the same lab are all submitting applications for proposed efforts on the same project, the efforts must be separate activities and not duplicative.

• The PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Translational Medicine provides $30,000 in stipend support per year for 12, 18, or 24 months.
• To receive funding beyond the first 12 months, awardees must provide the PhRMA Foundation with a satisfactory progress report upon completion of the first 10 months of funding. In addition, awardees must provide a letter from their thesis advisor, confirming that satisfactory progress is being made.
• Funding is conditional upon the awardee’s continued enrollment with the university, which will be assessed on a quarterly basis prior to payment. The awardee is required to notify the PhRMA Foundation if they leave the university or if they defend early.
• Payments will be made directly to the university on behalf of the awardee, with the understanding that the university will administer the funds.
• This award is intended solely as a stipend and may not be used otherwise. Funds may not be used for tuition, fringe benefits, or indirect costs to the university.
• Within the yearly award amount of $30,000, up to $1,000 (maximum) per year may be used for incidentals directly associated with thesis research preparation or travel to a scientific conference in the United States.
• Funding may begin as early as January 1, 2026, or on the first day of any month thereafter, up to and including August 1, 2026.
• A financial report (separate from the 10-month progress report) will be required upon completion of the first 12 months of funding.
• A final progress report and financial report will be required within 60 days of the fellowship’s conclusion.
• Unspent funds are to be returned to the PhRMA Foundation.
• Any changes to the proposed project must be approved by the PhRMA Foundation.
• These funds are non-transferable.

The applicant must have primary responsibility for the writing and the preparation of the application, understanding the mentor/thesis advisor will play a significant part in providing guidance to the applicant.

This is a two-step process. Step one is submitting a letter of intent (LOI) by April 15, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. (noon) ET. If your LOI is accepted, you will be notified by July 1, 2025, that you should proceed to the second step of submitting a full application, due August 28, 2025. 

To start a letter of intent, go to the ProposalCentral website at proposalcentral.com. If you are a new user of ProposalCentral, follow the link “Create an Account” and complete the registration process. If you are already a registered user, login with your username and password. If you have forgotten your password, click the “Forgot your Password?” link.

Once you are logged in, please click the “Professional Profile” tab at the top and complete steps 1-11 or update with your current information. Your name, degrees, position/title, academic rank, department, and address will be pulled from this page in ProposalCentral.

Step 1: Letter of Intent (LOI)

To submit an LOI, select the “Grant Opportunities” tab in ProposalCentral and a list of applications will be displayed. Find “PhRMA Foundation” and click the “Apply Now” link next to Predoctoral Fellowship in Translational Medicine.

Candidates are required to submit the following items at this stage: 

1. NIH Biosketch 

2. Project Abstract

3. 600-Word LOI

The LOI must describe the research project and its aims. It should be written by the applicant on U.S. letter-sized 8.5” x 11” pages with .5” margin and 11-point font. The first use of any abbreviation or acronym should be preceded by the full name or description. Citations and figures do not count toward the 600-word LOI limit. 

4. Research Impact Questions

Provide responses to the below questions using the template provided in Proposal Central: 

• Explain how your project fits into the PhRMA Foundation’s Translational Medicine Program.
• What is the critical question you aim to address and how is your project an innovative way to address it?
• What is the specific hypothesis/hypotheses you aim to test and how will human subjects/data/specimens be used?
• How will the completion of your project bring value to society?

LOIs are due by April 15, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. (noon) ET.

Step 2: Full Application (by invitation)

Applicants whose LOIs are selected by the review committee will be notified by July 1, 2025, and invited to submit a full application. Full application requirements will be sent via email and also posted here before the portal opens for full application submissions.

Full application deadline is August 28, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. (noon) EDT. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Award notification is December 15, 2025.