For Clinicians

Application process

As a clinician who has discovered a new gene as the cause of a rare disease you can submit a Connection Application to the RDMM-Europe Clinical Advisory Committee (CAC). If approved, the Solve-RD Project Management Office will open a call for tender for Seeding Grant applications and starts searching for Model Organism Investigators with relevant expertise using the RDMM-Europe database. The Model Organism Investigators will be invited to submit a Seeding Grant application for functional studies of the respective gene.

The RDMM-Europe Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) will review the submitted Seeding Grant applications. The clinician who submitted the Connection Application will be asked to establish a connection with the selected Model Organism Investigator. Following a successful connection, Clinician and Model Organism Investigator will be contacted by the Project Management Office. In addition, the model organism lab will sign a subcontract in order to receive the Seeding Grant of 20,000 EUR to functionally validate the new disease gene.

Application deadlines

Connection Applications have been accepted within specific deadlines (4x per year). Deadlines have been announced on the Solve-RD website and via newsletter to the Solve-RD consortium.

The final call for Connection Applications within the European Rare Disease Models & Mechanisms (RDMM-Europe) brokerage service was closed on 10 December 2021. Within the Solve-RD project we cannot accept any further Connection Applications.

The template for Connection Applications is available here.

Eligibility

  • Clinicians must be affiliated with a Solve-RD beneficiary or associated partner institution.
  • Clinicians must not have a financial interest holding of more than 5% in a company proposed as an industry partner for research funding.
  • Clinicians must confirm to have all relevant ethical approvals and patient consents in place.

Objectives

The specific objectives of the Solve-RD brokerage service are to:

  1. provide functional validation of human genetic variants that cause disease;
  2. supplement clinical disease gene discoveries by generating functional data so as to get higher impact publications;
  3. develop insights into potential rationale for treatment (e.g. identification of candidate drug targets) via knowledge of a disease gene pathway; and
  4. establish longer term collaborations between basic scientists and clinicians that will lead to subsequent grant funding in support of outstanding basic and/or applied research.