The goal of the Mooney Family Initiative is to enable investigators to mobilize their scientific discoveries into early human trials, which could ultimately impact the lives of pediatric patients suffering from rare diseases. By providing clinical trial costs, the goal of this program is to facilitate the global impact on BCH science investments on rare disease. The program therefore seeks to enhance the opportunity to enroll patients suffering from rare diseases in innovative trials. In addition to clinical trial and care costs, funds awarded through the Mooney Family Initiative will provide financial resources to bring patients and their families from afar to enroll in selected studies.

Full Application due: March 18, 2024
Funding begins: July 1, 2024

RFA

Eligibility

Applications will be accepted from Principal Investigators (PIs) who are full-time faculty of Boston Children’s Hospital. At time of application, if not already open and accruing patients, the trial should be ready to open within the upcoming 6-months. Peer- reviewed and funded NIH trials will be given priority. Multi-institutional trials, including those in which the BCH faculty is not the overall PI, will be considered. Those trials representing translation of scientific discoveries from BCH, particularly first in human studies, or trials in which BCH is the lead site will have priority.

Allowable funding

NIH allowable costs (OMB A110 cost principles), however salaries are not allowed:

  • Clinical care expenses not covered by insurance or other means of funding.
  • Trial expenses including (but not limited to) ancillary labs, specimen acquisition and archiving and correlative biological studies via the TransLab and Biorepository at BCH.
  • Non-clinical related expenses:
    • Travel—including airfare, ground transportation (taxi, bus, airport service), lodging
    • Visa\Passport\Immigration costs
    • Interpreters services
    • Food, diapers, formula
    • Home health care
    • Outpatient prescriptions
    • Follow-up appointments
Process

Applications will be accepted on a periodic basis and will be reviewed by an external review committee consisting of pediatric academic, translational research and clinical trial experts from outside Boston Children’s Hospital.

Review criteria: Applications will be prioritized for funding based on the review panel’s evaluation of the following:

  1. The likely impact of completion of the trial on child health.
  2. The role of BCH basic/discovery and translational research in development of the clinical trial, compelling nature of the need.
  3. The track record of the investigative team in carrying out human early phase therapeutic and device trials.
Funding

Funding through the Mooney Family Initiative is intended to offset/supplement the uncovered costs of a trial including but not limited to clinical care and research costs, laboratory testing, specimen acquisition and archiving and correlative biological studies. The award is not intended to cover the investigator’s salary expenses or salaries of other study team members. Funding may cover up to 10% of patients enrolled in the specific clinical trial for which the award is made up to $400K inclusive of 20% overhead. Funds are also available (up to $100k or current available) to cover a patient’s travel, housing and other incidental expenses for patients from outside NE, including international patients. No overhead is awarded with these non-clinical care costs. Requests for these non-clinical expenses can be made in addition to or separately from requests for clinical expenses.

Past Mooney Family Awardees