For four funding cycles, the IFOPA partnered with the Orphan Disease Center (ODC) at the University of Pennsylvania to expand FOP research grants through the Million Dollar Bike Ride Pilot Grant Program. 

The IFOPA and our dedicated fundraisers – Team #cureFOP – fundraised each June. In four years, they raised a total of $300,000 to fund seven grants whose research focus was either: 

1. Research that seeks to identify biomarkers, including novel imaging techniques, capable of measuring and predicting early FOP disease progression and/or treatment response
2. Research that investigates and further elucidates the immunologic mechanism in FOP

Grant funding was administered by the University of Pennsyvlania Orphan Disease Center and the Request for Applications (RFA) was open to the international community. All individuals holding a faculty‐level appointment at an academic institution or a senior scientific position at a nonprofit institution or foundation were eligible to apply.

Awardees of the research funding were given access to the IFOPA’s FOP Mouse Model and/or available samples from the IFOPA's FOP Biobank, if needed. Please contact the IFOPA at [email protected] for further details on these resources.