昨天收到这份邮件，是我岁末最好的礼物！

Dear Dr. Peng, 

We thank you for your interest in the AO Foundation, and in particular the AO Start-up Grant program. We appreciate the work you have put into your application.

Your proposal was reviewed and discussed at our last meeting. We are now pleased to advise you that your application has been provisionally approved with funding of CHF 90,000 for eighteen months under the conditions as mentioned in the attached AORRC review. We kindly ask you to provide one additional page in the application where you should highlight each of the concerns and how the modified grant has addressed these concerns. In addition, we kindly ask you to highlight or mark the changes in the attached grant application.

For your information we are attaching a summary of the reviews for your kind consideration.

In order not to delay the project start, please find attached the contract for your procedure. Please note that this only comes into force once you receive our official approval letter.

Please send the updated grant application no later than January 12, 2016. 

AO-start-up grant每年不超过10个，竞争非常激烈，我去年申请就被枪毙了，今年认真修改，并有了一些前期结果，所以获批，非常幸运，这个课题主要探讨椎间盘突出的分子机制。虽然我的主要科研方向是骨质疏松和骨代谢，但是作为脊柱外科医生，做点临床每天都遇到的病例的基础研究也非常需要，这个课题的合作方是AO 的Alini教授，他们团队在椎间盘方面做了大量的工作，相信和他们合作愉快。