Researchers from far and wide are earmarked to receive a piece of a $7 million funding pie, courtesy of The Alliance for Lupus Research (ALR). The ALR recently announced its awards.

Twenty-seven projected will be funded through ALR’s Target Identification in Lupus (TIL) and Pilot Grant programs. With this year’s funding awards announced, the ALR has officially funded more than 100 research projects, and committed more than $50 million to research, since its founding in 1999. A full list of grantees is available on the organization’s website.

TIL investigators receive a two-year, up-to-$500,000 award for research focused on removing the barriers to new treatments and a possible cure. All research funded under the TIL program is based on realizable goals for translation into therapeutic discovery programs – in other words, research that the ALR says “can move quickly from the laboratory to the patient’s bedside.”

Pilot Grant investigators receive a one-year award of up to $75,000. The Pilot Grant program is designed to support efforts that reflect innovative approaches and techniques and aid in the development of necessary pilot data for submission of larger awards to National Institutes of Health, the ALR, or other funding agencies.