Two compelling competitions to advance innovation—the BRIght Futures Prize and Stepping Strong Innovator Awards—are currently underway at BWH, and voters from the Brigham and beyond will determine the winners. Both competitions feature inventive ideas from across the hospital community, and each competition’s winner will receive a $100,000 prize.

Both competitions embody the Brigham’s ongoing focus on scalable innovation—research discoveries that can rapidly translate into clinical therapies for patients here and around the world.

The BRIght Futures Prize supports BWH investigators as they work to answer provocative questions or solve vexing problems in medicine. The fifth annual BRIght Futures Prize competition features three projects that have the potential to make dramatic improvements in patients’ lives.

Learn more about the finalists—Giovanni Traverso, MD, PhD, of the Division of Gastroenterology, Tracy Young-Pearse, PhD, of the Department of Neurology, and David Levine, MD, MA, of the division of Internal Medicine and Primary Care—in this issue of BWH Bulletin. The BRIght Futures prize will be presented at Discover Brigham on Thursday, Nov. 10.

The Stepping Strong Innovator Awards program is part of The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation, established by the Reny family following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. The attack left Gillian Reny, a student and aspiring dancer, with severe injuries to both of her legs. The center seeks to mobilize the full potential of interdisciplinary innovation for the benefit of citizens and military personnel worldwide who have suffered from the devastation of traumatic injuries and events. The Stepping Strong Innovator Awards program, one of three funded areas in the center, supports multidisciplinary, groundbreaking projects to inspire innovative research in trauma treatment and recovery.

Learn more about the three Stepping Strong Innovator Awards finalists—Giorgio Giatsidis, MD, of the Department of Surgery, Michael J. Weaver, MD, of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and Jay Zampini, MD, of Orthopaedic Surgery—and their projects in this issue, as well. The Stepping Strong Innovator Awards winner will be announced online on Monday, Oct. 17.