A catalyst for interaction with the scientific community
UPDATE: The video and slides [PDF] from the Predoctoral Training Grant (T32) webinar are now available.
If you’re planning to submit an application for the NIGMS Institutional Predoctoral Training Grant (T32) program in the basic biomedical sciences (PAR-20-213) for receipt dates on or after September 25, don’t miss our upcoming webinar:
Friday, August 28, 12:00-1:30 p.m. ET
Continue reading “Webinar for NIGMS Institutional Predoctoral Training Grant Program Applicants”We’ve joined the NIH Office of the Director and several institutes in two Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Radical (RADx-rad) initiative funding opportunity announcements (FOAs). These FOAs offer an excellent opportunity for NIGMS-supported researchers with expertise in technology development and/or artificial intelligence/machine learning to conduct innovative research addressing the public health emergency caused by COVID-19.
Continue reading “Funding Opportunities: Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics Radical (RADx-rad) Emergency Awards”
Credit: NIGMS.
We in the NIGMS family are deeply saddened by the loss of our former director Marvin Cassman, Ph.D., on August 6. Dr. Cassman joined NIGMS in 1975 as a health scientist administrator in what was then the Cellular and Molecular Basis of Disease Program, advancing through the ranks to become NIGMS’ deputy director, acting director, and from 1996 to 2002, director. Dr. Cassman’s tenure as director coincided with the period of NIH’s budget doubling, and he ably led NIGMS’ establishment of key initiatives that have had a worldwide impact. These included the Protein Structure Initiative, the goal of which was to make the three-dimensional, atomic-level structures of most proteins easily obtainable from knowledge of their corresponding DNA sequences. This enabled investigators to apply the new paradigm of high-throughput structure determination to study important biological and biomedical problems.
Continue reading “Remembering Former NIGMS Director Marvin Cassman”UPDATE: The slides [PDF] from the Bridges webinar are now available.
Are you preparing a grant application for the Bridges to the Baccalaureate or Bridges to the Doctorate institutional research training program? If so, please join our informational webinar to learn about the programs and application components. You’ll also have the opportunity to ask questions:
Tuesday, August 25, 2:00-4:00 p.m. ET
Continue reading “Webinar for Bridges to the Baccalaureate (T34) and Bridges to the Doctorate (T32) Program Applicants”We were unable to get together for this year’s National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence. In response to requests from the community, we’re hosting a virtual meeting for investigators and program leaders supported by the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program:
Tuesday, September 22, 2:00-5:30 p.m. ET
Continue reading “Join Our Virtual IDeA Program Meeting”UPDATE: The video and slides [PDF] from the MOSAIC webinar are now available.
Last summer, we shared with you our new Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) funding opportunity announcements (FOAs). MOSAIC, which NIGMS oversees, is part of NIH’s efforts to enhance diversity within the academic biomedical research workforce. It’s designed to facilitate the transition of promising postdoctoral researchers from diverse backgrounds into independent faculty careers at research-intensive institutions. The program has two components: a research education cooperative agreement (UE5) and a postdoctoral career transition award (K99/R00).
Continue reading “MOSAIC Announcements and Upcoming Webinar”We’d like to call your attention to a pair of recently published notices (NOT-GM-20-042 and NOT-GM-20-043) that address the unfavorable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on institutions’ ability to recruit faculty investigators. In response to this, we’ve reduced the minimum number of research projects required for our Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) Phases 1 and 2 from three to two. Additionally, we’ll allow budget increases for recruitment costs and pilot projects. These changes apply to active awards and to applications submitted for new Phase 1 (PAR-19-313) and Phase 2 (PAR-19-312) funding opportunity announcements.
Continue reading “Changes to COBRE Phase 1 and Phase 2 Awards and Applications”
Credit: NIGMS.
I am deeply saddened to tell you that Ward Smith, chief of our Biomedical Technology Branch in the Division of Biophysics, Biomedical Technology, and Computational Biology, passed away at the beginning of July.
Continue reading “Remembering Ward Smith”UPDATE: The video and slides [PDF] from the MIRA webinar are now available.
We recently reissued the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) for Early Stage Investigators (PAR-20-117). The first application due date is October 2, 2020.
We’re hosting a webinar to discuss this FOA and to answer your questions about the program on Thursday, August 6, 1:00-2:30 p.m. ET. To access the webinar, visit the WebEx meeting page (link no longer available). We plan to post the archived webinar and slides on the MIRA webpage after the event.
Continue reading “Webinar and Other Resources for New MIRA ESI Funding Opportunity”One of the most common questions we receive about the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program is the likelihood of an application’s funding given a certain overall impact score.
Frequent readers of this blog may note that we typically provide statistics as they relate to our R01 portfolio, but we’ve yet to provide a similar “funding curve” for the MIRA program. One reason that MIRA applications haven’t been included in these analyses is that, unlike most R01 applications, MIRA R35 applications don’t receive a percentile score. The percentile score allows for normalization of overall impact scores across study sections to account for any differences in scoring behavior that are observed in review panels. See the Office of Extramural Research’s comprehensive blog post for more information about overall impact scores and percentiles.
Continue reading “Funding Trends: MIRA Applications and Overall Impact Scores”