2025 Topic: Artificial Intelligence Applications in Eye Banking
Description
To advance innovation and knowledge in sight restoration, eye banking and cornea transplantation, EBAA provides up to $100,000 in grants each year to fund research in an area of interest to the profession. In 2025, the EBAA High Impact Research Grant will fund one proposal focused on “Artificial Intelligence Applications in Eye Banking” up to $50,000. This funding opportunity is in addition to the smaller research grants that are awarded each year.
Application Deadline: July 31, 2025
Grant Cycle: December 1, 2025 – December 31, 2026
Maximum Award Amount: $50,000
2024 Grant Recipient
Alfonso Sabater, MD, PhD, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute/ University of Miami
Lateral Flow Assay and Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification for Detecting Candida albicans Contamination in Corneal Storage
2024 Topic: Development of Pre-Distribution Testing for Microbial Species
Criteria/Guidelines
- Eligible applicants include:
- Physicians, including corneal surgeons and other eye care specialists
- Basic scientists, including biomedical and social scientists
- Eye-bank technicians, nurses, postgraduate fellows, ophthalmology residents, and medical students who are supervised by a physician or basic scientist associated with an eye bank or academic institution
- Applicants must provide assurance that research protocols comply with appropriate ethical guidelines for the use of experimental animals and human subjects.
- The proposed project is not currently being funded by another granting agency.
- Proposed budgets must adhere to the following:
- Total budget must be limited to $50,000.
- Salary support, travel and indirect costs for the principal investigator must not be included in the budget costs.
- Financial support is provided for consumable supplies and equipment necessary for the proposed investigation. No more than 40% of the funds, not to exceed $10,000, may be used for major equipment purchases.
- Limit of 2 applications per Principal Investigator or Scientific Supervisor.
- Principal Investigators who received a 2024 EBAA Pilot Research Grant are able to apply if the grant was for research on a different topic. Principal investigators who have received an EBAA Pilot Research Grant on this topic in the past are eligible for consideration if the project was successful and the funds are required to build upon the research. If a principal investigator receives the EBAA High Impact Research Grant, that individual is not eligible for the Pilot Research Grant in the same topic area.
- An individual organization/institution is only eligible to receive up to two EBAA scientific research grants in one year.
- Research awards for the EBAA High Impact Research Grant are designated for a one-year interval (December 1, 2024 – December 31, 2025) and are made available in one payment. Unexpended and unobligated funds remaining after the one-year grant period should be returned to the EBAA. Renewal applications will not be accepted.
Application Requirements
- All complete proposals should include:
- A completed application form that includes a detailed descriptions of the proposed research.
- Curriculum vitae or NIH biosketch for the Principal Investigator and Scientific Supervisor.
- Itemized budget that follows the guidelines listed above.
- Applicants in training, eye-bank technicians, and nurses must submit a letter from the scientific supervisor regarding his or her capabilities and time support for completing the proposed research study.
- Applicants who are not Paton Society members or who are not affiliated with an EBAA eye bank must submit a letter of support from a Paton Society member or the Medical Director of an EBAA eye bank; this letter must address the applicant’s capabilities for carrying out the research and the available facilities.
Application Submission
Applications must be submitted using the online portal below and include these six components:
- Background and Specific Aims of the project (1 page limit)
- Significance and Innovation (1 page limit)
- Methods / Approach (3 page limit)
- Qualifications & Environment (1 page limit)
- References (2 page limit)
- Budget (1 page limit)
Selection Process
All applications will be reviewed by the EBAA Research Committee and the selected project will be subject to Board approval. Awards will be made on the basis of scientific merit according to current funding capabilities. Recipients will be notified and announced in October 2024.
The grant proposals are critiqued on the following parameters:
- Significance and Innovation
- Relevance of the proposed research to the aforementioned research emphasis areas
- Likelihood to produce translatable research findings and/or to provide basis for further research
- Approach
- Logic of aims and feasibility
- Rigor and reproducibility – adequacy of experimental procedures
- Investigators
- Qualifications of investigator(s) to conduct proposed research
- Environment
- Availability of essential resources and support of institution
- Protection of human subjects, animals, or environment
- Adequacy of protection, where relevant
- Budget
- Adequate justification for proposed expenditures
Reports & Acknowledgements
- The principal investigator will be required to submit a 6-month progress report as well as a final report describing the progress and status of the research project at the completion of the one-year award interval.
- The principal investigator will outline plans for dissemination of completed work to professional medical groups (potentially via publications and presentations) and the lay public.
- Grant recipients are expected to submit an abstract of their research findings for an Eye Bank Association of America sponsored scientific meeting.
- All scientific publications and presentations resulting from the research grant shall acknowledge support by the Eye Bank Association of America.
- All rights, title and interest in and to any ideas, know-how, data, findings, or works of authorship obtained or created by or on behalf of the Grantee with the Grant funds will belong to neither the Grantee nor the Grantor, and will be available for public use. All ideas, know-how, data, findings, or works of authorship must be shared publicly by Grantee through publication in a journal, a conference presentation or other public forum. Should any party develop patentable inventions, improvements, materials, processes, methods or technologies derived from any ideas, know-how, data or findings created as a result of Grant funds, the developing party will have sole and exclusive property rights to such patentable inventions, improvements, materials, processes, methods or technologies.
Contact Information
Contact EBAA Director of Education, Stacey Gardner, with any questions about the submission process.
