Enhancement Programs
The Center for Metabolic Health (CMH) sponsors several programs aimed at increasing the research competitiveness of CMH faculty investigators.
Pilot & Feasibility Grant Program
The CMH hosts a yearly seed grant program designed to foster collaboration and develop new hypotheses and preliminary data that will allow competitive applications for extramural funding.
Since 2017, seed grant funding has been supported in part by Driving Out Diabetes, a Larry H. Miller Family Wellness Initiative. To learn more about this initiative, please see the Driving Out Diabetes website.
Seed Grants and Student Fellowships (2025 Awardees)
- Amandine Chaix, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology: “Golgi stress: a novel driver of beta cells lipotoxicity and diabetes” (Graduate fellowship for Audrey Stegman)
- Chris Depner, PhD, Health and Kinesiology: “Circadian-Based Intervention to Mitigate Diabetes Risk in People with Insufficient Sleep”
- Paul Estabrooks, PhD, Health and Kinesiology: “Using AI to Overcome Implementation Barriers to Physical Activity Promotion in Workplace Settings” (Graduate fellowship for Kayla Norton)
- Will Holland, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology: “ACSM5 is a novel regulator of ceramide-mediated metabolic dysfunction” (Graduate fellowship for Dave Dumaguit)
- Dean Tantin, PhD, Pathology: “Characterization of thymic adipocytes (thADs)”
Team Science Awards (2025 Awardees)
- Amandine Chaix, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology (MPI); Gregory Ducker, PhD, Biochemistry, Keren Hilgendorf, PhD, Biochemistry: “Identifying metabolic and lipid dependencies in obesity accelerated breast cancer”
- Anna Ibele, MD, Surgery (MPI); Paul Stewart, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology; Mary Playdon, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology: “Ceramides as Predictors of Metabolic Response to Bariatric Surgery”
- Katsu Funai, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology (MPI); Amandine Chaix, PhD, Nutrition and Integrative Physiology; Corrine Welt, MD, Endocrinology: “Semaglutide increases skeletal muscle energy efficiency in humans”
Previous Year Awardees
Innovation Mini Grant Program
The goal of the Innovation Mini Grant Program is to provide financial support for University of Utah faculty to develop new or more cost-effective methodologies in diabetes and/or metabolism research that will be utilized by the broader community. Examples could include developing new assays or new survey measures.
The CMH will preferentially consider supporting methodology development in partnership with the University of Utah Health Sciences Center (HSC) Cores, but will consider other proposals on a case-by-case basis. Learn more here.
Extramural Grant Review Program
The CMH recognizes the value of NIH-style peer review feedback of grant applications before submission.
We are piloting a program for external peer review of grant applications extramural multi-year grants totaling >$500K that focus on diabetes, obesity, or metabolism.
Find information on how to apply.
Grant Submission Project Management
For CMH investigators considering a large multi-PI grant submission to a federal agency, staff of the SVPHS Research Unit can help facilitate grant submissions.
Services include:
- setting and sticking to timelines
- scheduling team meetings
- budget preparation
- writing administrative grant sections
- collecting and editing biosketches
- revising/editing/synergizing grant documents
- and other services as needed.