Eligibility
Eligibility for the Merkin Prize extends to important, novel technologies that have had demonstrable real-world impact on human health, such as prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of disease, and the individuals and/or teams who were key contributors to their development.
Technology
The Merkin Prize annually recognizes one specific technology. Nominations for multiple technologies or for a nominee’s aggregated body of work are ineligible.
For the purposes of this prize, a technology is defined as an innovation or invention of a method or device, such as a technique used in a research or clinical laboratory, a computational method, a therapeutic medical device, or a diagnostic test.
A nominated technology may have been created through work in academia, the commercial sector, and/or government.
Nominations for discoveries, such as novel organisms, biological pathways, or a previously undescribed disease, or for new applications of already invented technologies, will not be considered.
Technologies developed at, or in collaboration with, the Broad Institute are ineligible.
Clinical Impact
Each nomination must specify and convincingly describe the technology’s clinical impact — past, present, and projected future. Technologies that are in either pre-clinical or clinical-trial phases of development are not eligible for the prize.
For the purpose of this prize, therapeutics should have regulatory agency approval (e.g., FDA or EMA) as the indication of clinical benefit.
For the purpose of this prize, diagnostics and devices should have demonstrated clear benefit to patients in clinical studies with evidence of use in routine clinical practice.
Key Contributors (Nominees)
Individuals, teams, and/or combinations of individuals and teams may be nominated for the prize. For example, an individual/team combination could consist of a principal investigator (PI) (an individual) and his or her laboratory group (team), or a PI at one institution (individual) and a research group at another (team).
Although no absolute limit has been placed on the number of individuals included in a nomination, more than four is discouraged except under exceptional conditions. If nominating a team, no more than 50 members of the team may be nominated.
Teams from any kind of institution — academic, commercial, or government — are eligible to receive the Merkin Prize. The team will allocate its cash award equally among its members if selected to receive a prize. To qualify for a nomination that includes a team as a potential recipient, each team member should be considered an essential component, having contributed directly to the development of the nominated technology through experimental work. Those in primarily administrative roles are not eligible for the prize.
Self-nominations are not permitted. A “self-nomination” occurs when a nominator is listed as a nominee.
All nominees must be living. Posthumous nominations will not be considered.
Investigators whose laboratories are based at the Broad Institute are ineligible to receive the prize.
Institutions and/or other kinds of organizations are not eligible to receive the prize.
Those who submit nominations determined not to include all living key contributors may be asked to resubmit an amended nomination for consideration in a future cycle.
Nominators
Nominators may submit no more than two nominations per cycle. A nominator must be one or more individuals, not an institution or an organization.
Submissions from nominators in any discipline and residing in any part of the world will be considered.
We particularly encourage nominations of individuals and teams that include people from historically underrepresented communities, as a means to honor the importance of a diverse workforce in biomedical research.
Questions?
View Merkin Prize FAQs or email merkinprize@broadinstitute.org.