The Steering Committee of the MRC Regional Partnership Program met on February 21, 1997, to review and rank letters of intent. There were eleven letters of intent with a five-year value of $2.5 million.

The Committee agreed that for this, the first competition of the program, applications should be limited to those with a very high likelihood of success in the MRC process and which also met all of the criteria specified by MRC and by the regional planning process. Four letters of intent have been approved and the authors are asked to produce full applications by May 1, 1997.

These are:

Novel Approaches for Investigating Pathogenicity, Antivirals and Diagnostic Methods in the Woodchuck Model of Hepatitis B - Dr. T. Michalak, Dr. M. Grant, Dr. K. Kao, Dr. W. H. Marshall

Interventions to Improve the Quality of Health Care Delivery in Newfoundland - Dr. P. Parfrey, Dr. B. Barrett, Dr. R. Foley

Seniors Applied Research Initiative - Dr. R. West, Dr. B. Bavington, Dr. S. Buehler, Dr. H. Strong, Dr. D. Duggan, Dr. L. Gien, Dr. V. Ribeiro, Dr. S. Solberg, Ms. M. Cahill, Ms. A. Crowley, Ms. Bernadette Doyle, Ms. Maureen Leat, Ms. Rosemary Lester, Mr. Leon Mills

A Comprehensive Analysis of Genetic Disease in Newfoundland - Dr. B. Younghusband, Dr. W. Davidson, Dr. J. Green, K. Hodgkinson, Dr. E. Ives, Dr. C. Prasad, Dr. E. Randell