Year: 2010

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Beyond Bio2010

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Beyond Bio2010Last month, I attended the “Beyond Bio2010” conference held at the National Academy of Sciences. The meeting highlighted the progress made in implementing the Bio2010 Link to external web site recommendations, chiefly to transform undergraduate biology education by using the quantitative sciences (mathematics, chemistry, physics, engineering and computer sciences) to study biology and vice versa.

The 2-day meeting, which was held in the same room that the Bio2010 report was publically released in 2002, primarily consisted of teams of biology, math and computer sciences faculty discussing strategies used by their institutions to reform science curricula. Among the efforts that really caught my attention were those that:

  • Assessed student learning outcomes and showed improvement as a result of integrating math, physics, chemistry and computer science into biology;
  • Established new interdisciplinary majors or minors in areas like bioinformatics;
  • Described efforts to break down “departmental silos” through collaborations among biology, math, chemistry and other faculty;
  • Trained faculty for an integrated pedagogical approach (for a resource, see The National Academies Summer  Institutes on Undergraduate Education in Biology); and
  • Discussed the need for the administration to formally recognize faculty who reformed the curricula.

In addition, I presented a summary of NIGMS-supported efforts, namely the MARC Curricular Improvement grant, a competitive mechanism for eligible institutions to implement Bio2010 recommendations. The inclusion of all undergraduate students, with a focus on historically unrepresented populations, was a significant theme of the conference. In fact, I was delighted to see one of our MARC Curricular Improvement grantees from the University of Puerto Rico talk about her institution’s efforts on this front.

A unique feature of the conference was that several undergraduate students also presented posters on their interdisciplinary biology and mathematics research. Their posters showed math majors collecting samples in a stream and biology majors performing mathematical modeling. A faculty attendee at the conference noted that when he walked around and listened to the student presenters, he really could not figure out who was a math major and who was a biology major—a desired outcome of Bio2010!

If you are interested in finding more details about “Beyond Bio2010,” a report of the conference is slated to be published in the Fall 2010 issue of CBE—Life Sciences Education Link to external web site.

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Job Opportunity in Enzymology/Biochemistry

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We’re looking for a program director (or “health scientist administrator”) to oversee grants and other activities related to enzymology and other aspects of biochemistry. The job is within the Division of Pharmacology, Physiology and Biological Chemistry. We hope to find someone who can work effectively in a team setting and who already has some independent research experience in this area or a closely related area of biochemistry.

For details, see the job announcement. Please forward this information to anyone who might be interested in the position and feel free to send me questions about the job.

The listing closes July 12, 2010.

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Presenting NIGMS to the NIH Director’s Advisory Committee

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Presentation to the Advisory Committee to the DirectorThe Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH (ACD) is a group knowledgeable in the fields of research pertinent to the NIH mission. It includes individuals from the academic and private sector research communities as well as representatives of the general public.

The ACD meets in person twice a year to provide advice on a range of NIH activities. At almost every meeting, the NIH Director invites an institute or center director to present information about his or her organization, including his or her vision of its key features.

I was delighted when Dr. Collins invited me to present at the most recent ACD meeting. In my talk, I highlighted the Institute’s focus on investigator-initiated research and aspects of our role in training and workforce development. I also described some advances in five areas across NIGMS, including structural biology and the Protein Structure Initiative, RNA biology, pharmacogenomics, the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) postdoctoral program and the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) program.

A video of my talk and a question-and-answer session is now available. It begins at minute 138:45 with an introduction by Dr. Collins.

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My NCBI Tool to Replace eRA Commons for Bibliography Management

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My NCBI screenshotNIH has announced a significant upgrade to the citation management capability of investigators’ personal profiles in the eRA Commons.

With the integration of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) “My Bibliography” portal, direct database queries will replace manual citation entry in the Commons. This will have many benefits, most immediately for your eSNAP progress reports due to more accurate data and automated evaluation of each citation’s Public Access Policy compliance status.

You must now enter citations via My Bibliography accounts. Users (investigators or delegates) will need to have a My NCBI account and link it to their Commons account. Instructions are available on the Commons Web site at https://era.nih.gov/.

Please note that beginning July 23, you will not be able to manually enter a citation directly into the Commons. You will still be able to manually enter citations of publications and other items not indexed in PubMed (book chapters, meeting abstracts, etc.), but this must be done using My Bibliography. Also note that beginning on October 22, all citations that had been manually entered into the Commons will no longer be displayed. Publications abstracted in PubMed will automatically appear in My Bibliography; other citations must be added to My Bibliography to appear.

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Early Notice: Program Projects for Collaborative Research on the Basic Biology of Pluripotency and Reprogramming

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It’s safe to say that the discovery that human non-embryonic cells can be reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell-like state has created a lot of excitement in the scientific community. These cells provide a wonderful opportunity to investigate the fundamental molecular and genetic properties of pluripotent cells.

Last month, the NIGMS Council approved a new grant program that will focus on studying the basic biology of pluripotency and reprogramming, with an emphasis on human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. This initiative will use the program project (P01) mechanism to support collaborative research that advances a comprehensive understanding of the basic biology of pluripotency, the molecular events and mechanisms of reprogramming, and the epigenetics and epigenomics of the pluripotent and reprogrammed states.

Once the funding opportunity announcement has been published in the NIH Guide later this summer, we will post it on the Feedback Loop site. In the meantime, I encourage you to start talking with potential collaborators and thinking about applying.

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NIGMS Grantee and Council Member Wins Lemelson-MIT Prize

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Congratulations to Carolyn Bertozzi!

We were delighted to learn that this longtime NIGMS grantee, current NIGMS Advisory Council member and former Stetten lecturer has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize  The prize honors technological invention and innovation.

Carolyn is a clear leader in chemical biology and glycobiology whose work extends from very basic studies of chemical reactivity through a variety of applications in biology. In addition, she is a committed teacher and mentor.

Please join me in congratulating her for this award in recognition of her many significant contributions.

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Opportunity to Comment on Proposed Changes to Financial Conflict of Interest Regulations

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One of my activities is representing NIGMS on the NIH Financial Conflict of Interest Panel. This group has put substantial time and effort into updating the financial conflict of interest regulations that apply to NIH grant applicants. The proposed changes to the regulations are reflected in a recently released notice of proposed rulemaking (link no longer available) that is now open for comment. You may submit comments electronically or by mail as long as they are received by July 20, 2010.

Although responsibility for reporting and managing financial conflicts of interest would remain with the grantee institution, several of the proposed changes would affect individual investigators. For example, investigator disclosure requirements would be expanded to include all significant financial interests related to the investigator’s institutional responsibilities. In addition, the dollar threshold for disclosure of significant financial interests would be $5,000 (it’s currently $10,000), and this amount would apply to both payments and equity interests. Equity interest of any amount in non-publicly traded entities is considered a significant financial interest and would have to be disclosed.

Investigators would also be required to complete financial conflict of interest training before engaging in NIH-funded research and every 2 years thereafter.

I encourage you to look over the proposed rulemaking document as well as to learn how your institution will be implementing the new financial conflict of interest policy.

UPDATE: The comment period on the proposed changes to financial conflict of interest regulations has been extended to August 19. For more details, see the NIH Guide.

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A Call for Scientific Images

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NIGMS Image GalleryHave you seen the NIGMS image gallery? We’d love to feature your work there.

The gallery contains photos, illustrations and videos that showcase NIGMS-supported science. It’s a place where teachers, students, journalists and even I go to obtain images that help people understand and appreciate biomedical research.

If you have interesting or striking images or videos created with NIGMS support, please e-mail me! We prefer entries without copyright restrictions (i.e., never published or for which you retain the copyright). Images in the gallery are freely available for educational, news media or other informational purposes.

You might also consider entering the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Science. Entries, which are due by September 15, can include photography, illustrations, informational posters and graphics, interactive games and non-interactive media. They can be pedagogical, playful or just plain pretty. Winning submissions will appear in a February 2011 issue of Science and will be featured online by Science and NSF. Let me know if you win, so NIGMS can feature the image, too!

I have judged this competition for the past 2 years and can give you more details if you’re interested.

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Finding Synergy Between Math and Biology

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Frontiers in Mathematical Biology: NSF-NIH PIs Meeting 2010 posterLast week, I attended the PI’s meeting for the Joint DMS/NIGMS Initiative to Support Research in the Area of Mathematical Biology, a program managed by us and NSF’s Division of Mathematical Sciences. A key goal of the program is to bring mathematicians and new mathematical approaches into the core of biological and biomedical research.

I was a grantee of this program before I came to NIGMS, so it was interesting to see how the program has evolved and to meet other scientists finding synergy between math and biology.

During the two-day meeting, researchers and students supported by the program shared their experiences, exchanged ideas and explored new collaborations in the field of mathematical biology. Their oral and poster presentations covered a spectrum of topics, from protein and RNA structure prediction to modeling biological complexity and statistical inference. The meeting also featured six brainstorming breakout sessions that helped the program officials identify future opportunities and challenges for the field.

Here are few ideas that caught my attention:

  • Several speakers emphasized that the quest for stimulating the innovative use of mathematics should not undermine the application of well established mathematical approaches in biology.
  • Dynamical systems theory, which describes how complex networks change over time, suggests that the architecture underlying a biological network’s control system may have been evolutionary selected to support the delicate balance between robustness and efficiency.
  • Methods for studying the spread of infectious diseases could also be used to study the spread of emotional states (depression, happiness, etc.).

If you are interested in mathematical biology, visit the meeting Web site—it will be updated soon with the meeting abstracts, slides and photos. If you would like to apply for funding for mathematical biology research, look for an announcement about the program’s next solicitation on the Feedback Loop around the end of July.

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Hearings on Fiscal Year 2011 Budget

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Congressional hearings on the Fiscal Year 2011 President’s budget request for NIH are now under way. The hearing before the House subcommittee that handles NIH appropriations began at 10 a.m. today, and the Senate hearing will take place on May 5. The ultimate outcome will be a bill that appropriates funds for NIH, including NIGMS.

My written testimony and NIH Director Francis Collins’ written testimony on next year’s budget are now available.