Category: Resources

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Impact Score Paragraph in Summary Statements, Plain Language in Public Sections of Grant Applications

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Extramural NexusThe August issue of NIH’s Extramural Nexus includes two announcements that might interest you.

Impact Score Paragraph in Summary Statements

Starting with September grant application reviews, reviewers will include a summary paragraph to explain what factors they considered in assigning the overall impact score. This should help investigators better understand the reasons for the score.

Plain Language in Public Sections of Grant Applications

The director’s column talks about the importance of communicating research value in your grant application.

Your grant title, abstract and statement of public health relevance are very important. Once a grant is funded, these items are available to the public through NIH’s RePORTER database. Many people are interested in learning about research supported with taxpayer dollars, so I encourage you to be clear and accurate in writing these parts of your application. Reviewers are being told to expect plain language in these sections.

The Nexus column includes links to these helpful resources:

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Electronic Awards Administration

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As with the transition to electronic grant applications, NIH is now transitioning to electronic award administration. Here are some important upcoming changes.

Progress Reports

Beginning August 1, 2010, you must use the eRA Commons eSNAP (Electronic Streamlined Non-competing Award Process) feature to submit all eligible progress reports. Also, SNAP progress reports will be due 45 days prior to the next budget start date (instead of 60 days), and IRB and IACUC approval dates will not be required as part of the progress report.

You can refer to the Notice of Award to determine whether these new requirements apply to your grant. For detailed instructions, see the eSNAP User Guide.

Appointments and Terminations

Beginning January 1, 2011, you must use the xTrain feature in eRA Commons to electronically submit appointment forms and termination notices for research training, fellowship, education and career development awards. After this date, paper documents will not be accepted.

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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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Video from Postdoc Workshop Now Available

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Marion Sewer, University of California, San DiegoAs you may recall from an earlier Feedback Loop message, NIGMS hosted its first workshop to help postdocs successfully transition to independent positions. We just posted videos for all the presentations.

The two-day career development event at NIH brought together 150 postdoctoral fellows from diverse backgrounds to discuss a wide range of topics, including applying and interviewing for jobs; establishing a lab and getting that first grant; and balancing research with teaching, family and other commitments. Meeting attendees also had the opportunity to ask panelists questions about their personal experiences and get other valuable career advice.

So far, we have received a lot of positive feedback from participants and presenters. If you have additional comments, please feel free to post them here or e-mail me.

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NIGMS Cell Repository Will Expand Collection, Services

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Coriell’s cryogenic tanks filled with liquid nitrogen and millions of vials of frozen cells. Credit: Coriell Institute for Medical Research

Good news—we just awarded a five-year contract to the Coriell Institute for Medical Research to continue and expand operation of the NIGMS Human Genetic Cell Repository (HGCR) Link to external web site.

A lot of NIGMS grantees who do basic research may not be familiar with the HGCR. It currently has more than 10,000 cell lines from individuals who have genetic disorders and those who do not. The cell lines, each of which has been comprehensively characterized and is contaminant-free, represent nearly 1,000 disorders. An equally important element of the HGCR is the human variation collection, which includes samples from populations around the world.

Under the new contract, the repository will continue to acquire, characterize and distribute cell cultures and DNA samples. In the coming months, it will add induced pluripotent stem cell lines that researchers can use to study inherited diseases and the regulation of normal cell differentiation. To respond to the changing needs within the genetics community, the repository will also start accepting custom orders.

One of the real advantages of ordering materials from the repository has been and certainly will continue to be the high level of characterization and quality control.

You can read more about the repository in the NIGMS news release. You can also go to the HGCR online catalog Link to external web site to see what cell lines are available.

If you’ve used the repository, let me know what you think. If you haven’t, keep it in mind for future studies—it’s a great resource for getting good quality human cell lines, especially ones that may otherwise be difficult to obtain.

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Propose Research Using the World’s Most Powerful Supercomputer

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How to Get Involved

Watch Videocast on
Dec. 17, 2-4 p.m.

The Blue Waters petascale computing system, under construction by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Link to external website at the University of Illinois, will be the most powerful computer in the world when it comes online in 2011. The National Science Foundation is currently soliciting proposals for computing time Link to external website to explore big questions that can’t be addressed with other existing computer systems.

We will be hosting a virtual workshop and applicant briefing on Blue Waters to encourage our grantees to develop high-impact community proposals for computing time on this very important new resource. Given the amount of NIGMS-supported biological and biomedical research that utilizes a variety of computing platforms, we think there are a lot of great research opportunities.

The videocast is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 17, from 2-4 p.m. You will be able to access it at http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=8324. During the discussion, we will tell you about the opportunity, identify areas of science within the NIGMS mission that may benefit from Blue Waters, and help interested scientists form collaborations to submit proposals.

Presenters include Jeremy Berg, Stephen Meacham from NSF, Eric Jakobsson and Thom Dunning from the University of Illinois, and John Moult from the University of Maryland. You may join the live discussion by e-mailing questions and comments via the NIH Videocast Web site or by sending them to me. You also can send me your ideas or questions ahead of time.

Because of the considerable NIGMS investment in protein folding and prediction of protein structure from sequence, we will explore this area during the videocast. We realize that many other areas within the NIGMS mission may also benefit from access to Blue Waters, and we welcome discussion about those as well.

We have also set up a Web site where you can post your ideas and interests in using Blue Waters and/or forming collaborations.

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New Resource to Address Glycoscience Bottlenecks

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There are over 750 human enzymes dedicated to glycan synthesis, catabolism and recognition. They include glycosyltrasferases (GTs) and glycoside hydrolases (GHs). While there is tremendous demand for these enzymes in the scientific community, few are available in sufficient quantities for synthetic purposes or for structural/functional studies. Not surprisingly, glyco-enzymes are exceptionally underrepresented in the Protein Data Bank.

To help overcome these bottlenecks, NIGMS is partnering with NIH’s National Center for Research Resources to provide a two-year Recovery Act supplement to the NCRR-sponsored Resource for Integrated Glycotechnology at the University of Georgia. The center will draw additional expertise from investigators at the University of Arizona and University of Wyoming to generate libraries of gateway and expression vectors for glyco-enzymes. The gateway and expression libraries for these enzymes will begin to be made available to the scientific community over the next few months.

The team also will work to express and distribute a subset of these enzymes. Your input for this expression effort is welcome. Please direct inquiries regarding these vectors/enzymes to Kelley Moremen.

This new repository for mammalian GT and GH libraries will speed expansion of the chemical space for carbohydrates as well as speed structural and biochemical studies of these enzymes. The resource should benefit multiple scientific communities and accelerate progress on both the basic biology of the enzymes and their use for development of screening tools (arrays), diagnostics and therapeutics.

The GT and GH expression vectors libraries also may be a useful resource for researchers planning to respond to the upcoming PSI:Biology program announcements mentioned in an earlier post.

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Research Resources for the Scientific Community

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Through initiatives such as “glue” grants, the Protein Structure Initiative, the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study, the Pharmacogenetics Research Network and in other ways, NIGMS-supported researchers develop resources, information and opportunities of value to broad segments of the scientific community. A list of major NIGMS-funded Web sites and portals is available on our Web site.

I invite you to explore these resources, and I welcome your comments about them.

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PSI:Biology Reminder and Application Resources

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PSI:Biology

This is just a reminder that letters of intent for the three PSI:Biology funding opportunities are due on Monday, Sept. 28. If you’re still thinking about applying, please view these resources:

You can access this and other relevant information from our PSI:Biology Web site. Please continue to direct any additional questions to me by e-mail or phone (301-594-0828).

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Happy Fifth Birthday, MIDAS

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Five years ago this summer, MIDAS, the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study, was born. When we began, we knew the effort to develop computational models of disease spread would play a role in preparing for new outbreaks—we just didn’t think it’d be so immediate. First with H5N1 fears and now with the H1N1 pandemic, our researchers have provided computational models to help decisionmakers from all levels of the government plan ways to control flu.

While modeling is just one of many tools used in making policy recommendations, it can help explore different scenarios and outcomes. In the case of flu, MIDAS scientists have used their models to help answer questions like:

  • Can you contain a pandemic locally?
  • What’s the best way to slow the spread of flu while we develop a vaccine?
  • What’s the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions?
  • Should we distribute antivirals before an outbreak?

As we head into the next five years, we are adding two new centers and three research groups that are pretty exciting. They bring expertise in such areas as MRSA modeling, high-performance computing, statistics, social behavior and visualization tools for non-experts. We’re also going to put a lot more effort into understanding the ecology and evolution of disease, the impact of co-infections, and antibiotic and antiviral resistance.

The two new centers have an additional charge in education and outreach, particularly with public health officials from around the world. I am especially looking forward to this, since there’s such a great need for people with backgrounds in infectious disease epidemiology to also be able to do analytical and computational work.

The thoughtful, careful studies we do through MIDAS require a diverse group of people to communicate with each other every day. One thing I love about the way MIDAS has matured over the years is that we’ve built a level of trust and collaboration. Our researchers freely share data, ideas, and analytical and computational tools.

As we’ve learned, health policy questions emerge and develop almost instantly as new issues arise. Our challenge will continue to be modeling in this real-time context.