It’s crucial that the results of NIH-supported biomedical research are reproducible, unbiased, and properly validated. Establishment and use of rigorous and reproducible approaches require appropriate and sustained training of researchers and students. In 2014, we announced a funding opportunity to develop, pilot, and disseminate training modules to enhance data reproducibility. The products of these grants are posted on the NIGMS website as they become available, together with other relevant training modules about conducting rigorous and reproducible research.
We’ve just reissued a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) to support the development of additional training modules in three areas that build upon and extend those targeted through the previous FOA. The three new areas of emphasis are: 1) How scientific culture, organization, and incentives influence the rigor and reproducibility of biomedical research; 2) Good laboratory practices and record keeping; 3) Advanced experimental design and analysis.
The application deadline is June 29, 2018. Applicants may request up to $250,000 in direct costs to cover the entire award period (up to three years). More details can be found in the FOA or in the program’s Frequently Asked Questions.
If you have any questions about this FOA or the training modules, please contact me.
NIGMS Rigor and Reproducibility Working Group
Alexandra Ainsztein, Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Erica Brown, Division of Extramural Activities
Luis Cubano, Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity
Haluk Resat, Division of Biophysics, Biomedical Technology, and Computational Biosciences
Lisa Dunbar, Office of Scientific Review
Kristine Willis, Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Dorit Zuk, Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
Lack of training is not the issue in the “reproducibility crises” and this effort is a thinly veiled effort to appear to “do something” when NIH is quite unwilling to take tough measures to prohibit the immorality of bad actors in gaslighting, missing data, etc. The public can only look forward to more “false facts” that are injurious to the progress of society due to NIH’s sympathy for bad actors in the research community.
I have already sent to Dr Lorsch hundreds of citations from his colleagues documenting the extent of bad actors and its only laughable to believe the reproducibility crises is due to lack of training.
Structural Glycobiology. Detailed structural analyses in the field of Glycobiology is a mess with little collaborative focus for a unified solution. The introduction of cartoons for structural understanding satisfied the demands for publication but leaves the exacting structural problem adrift at a time when medical research is crying for such detail (antibody, vaccine, specific function). The fact that journals except partial solutions takes the pressure off the exacting details that should be the criterion for publication. Cartoons have provided an escape to the publish or perish mindset and offers an escape to specific details inherent in stereo and structural analysis. But, detailed structural analyses can be achieved by MSn and supported by spectral documentation. And it is here, with International collaborative teams, that structural Glycobiology will effectively open the doors to the moribund functional questions.