Dana Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Dana Foundation has supported research in neuroscience, neuroimaging and neuroimmunology. It also runs many signature programs that disseminate and publicize scientific findings to professionals, students and the public through institutional partnerships. This funder recently paused its research grantmaking program.
IP TAKE: This funder is currently revamping its funding strategies, but its mandate and past grantmaking practices suggest that it will continue to support brain research and scientific research related to methodologies, measurement and instruments used in brain and cellular research, as well as educational programs and professional seminars on scientific research.
Brain and cell research grants from the Dana Foundation’s Neuroscience and Society program do not support research per se, but fund multiple programs involved with research infrastructure and the dissemination of new research findings to professionals, students and the general public.
This foundation is not currently making research grants, but contact them to see if this has changed or when it will do so.
PROFILE: The Dana Foundation, based in New York City, was founded in 1950 by the industrialist Charles A. Dana and his wife, Eleanor Naylor Dana. In its early years, the foundation supported cancer research, higher education and the arts. One early grantee to receive ongoing support was the Sidney Farber Cancer Center, which was eventually renamed Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Over the ensuing decades, the foundation’s mission has evolved to focus exclusively on brain research. It was involved in the establishment of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, and in the 2000s, it was headed by the celebrated New York Times columnist William Safire, who “led the move to disseminate more information about neuroscience.” Today, the Dana Foundation supports brain research and aims to increase public knowledge about brain science through its publications, signature education programs and conferences.
Grants for Science Research
Past grantmaking at the Dana Foundation was sourced from its Research and Neuroscience and Society grantmaking programs. Through the research program, the foundation supported research on imaging technology. While the main goal of this funding was toward the advancement of neuroscience, a series of David Mahoney Neuroimaging Grants funded some investigations of cellular and molecular imaging technologies. Past grantees include a study of multiphoton microscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging at Yale University and studies of cellular imaging at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
The foundation’s Neuroscience and Society program provides ongoing support to a cadre of organizations in the U.S. and the U.K. that are engaged in a broad variety of scientific pursuits. While most funding falls into the more specific area of neuroscience, some more general scientific research programs are funded. At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the foundation has provided annual funding for scientists and teams who “apply basic research findings to the development of new therapeutic interventions, and to apply clinical observation in answering questions about disease processes.” Another recipient, the National Academy of Sciences, receives funding to produce materials “to improve use and consideration of science by judges worldwide in managing cases involving scientific and technological evidence.”
Grants for Brain and Cell Research
Dana’s past brain and cell research stemmed mainly from the foundation’s paused research grantmaking program. In recent years, the research program ran three sub-programs.
Clinical Neuroscience Research Grants supported small-scale studies of promising treatments of conditions or injuries using human or animal subjects, studies of the role of neurons and neural networks in brain diseases and studies of the long-term effects of commonly used methods of rehabilitation in response to brain injuries. Past grants have gone to projects at the University of Toronto, the University of Delaware and the John Wayne Cancer Center.
David Mahoney Neuroimaging Grants focused on the advancement of imaging techniques advance the ability to “reveal how the human brain functions normally, how disorders and injuries alter these functions, and how various therapies affect these conditions.” This program prioritized studies from which data could be used to plan and form hypotheses for larger-scale projects. Past Mahoney grantees include individual investigators at the University of Colorado, the Scripps Research Institute and the Icahn School of Medicine.
Neuroimmunology of Brain Infections and Cancers Grants went to studies of immune-based treatments for brain metastases and other brain cancers, studies of immune responses to brain infections and studies of how the immune system and the brain affect one another with regard to immune function. This funding line supported research at the Skirball Research Center at New York University.
Brain and cell research grants from the Dana Foundation’s Neuroscience and Society program do not support research per se, but fund multiple programs involved with research infrastructure and the dissemination of new research findings to professionals, students and the general public. Partner organizations include the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, the International Brain Research Organization, PBS Television and the University of Washington.
Important Grant Details:
The Dana Foundation typically awards between 10 and 15 research grants each year, with an average grant size of about $250,000. Grantees included universities, medical schools, hospitals and research institutes in the U.S., Canada and Europe. The foundation provides a searchable database of past grants on its website.
This funder is not currently awarding research grants, but continues to run its neuroscience and society partnerships and programs. General inquiries may be directed to foundation staff via email or telephone at 212-223-4040.
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