Program Overview
Letter of Intent deadline: March 18, 2025, at 2:00pm ET
The Weston Family Foundation aims to catalyze and scale science-based approaches to significantly improve the health and well-being of Canadians. The Foundation takes a leadership role in tackling large problems that are under-addressed by supporting research that is particularly relevant to the health of Canadians and that empowers Canadians to improve their health and well-being.
The Foundation through its Weston Brain Institute is pleased to announce the launch of our flagship Rapid Response program designed to provide seed funding to catalyze novel, high-risk, high-reward translational research that accelerates the development of therapeutics or tools for neurodegenerative diseases of aging.
Five projects were awarded in the Rapid Response 2024 program, to learn more about these projects, click here.
Program details:
Eligible projects should:
- Be translational research that can accelerate therapeutic or tool development for neurodegenerative diseases of aging (NDAs), as defined by the Institute.
- Therapeutics should address unmet needs in the prevention, treatment and/or symptomatic management of NDAs.
- Tools should address challenges in translational research to accelerate the development and/or clinical implementation of therapeutics for NDAs (e.g., biomarkers, drug delivery systems). Projects covering only the discovery/identification of a tool are considered out of scope.
- Have preliminary data to support the hypothesis and feasibility of the project.
Funding available per project: Up to $300,000 over 18-24 months.
Important dates:
- Program information session: February 11, 2025 at 1pm ET – Register Here
- Letter of Intent deadline: March 18, 2025, at 2pm ET
- Award announcement: November 2025
For more information about this program, including details on project and applicant eligibility, institute definitions (for translational research, NDAs, therapeutics, tools), program review criteria and expected project outcomes, please see the relevant documents below.
We welcome you to contact us with any program-related inquiries including questions about the eligibility or fit of your project. Please send your questions to info@westonbrain.org
Relevant documents: