NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog – National Institute of General Medical Sciences
A catalyst for interaction with the scientific community
As in previous years, we’re offering administrative supplements to NIGMS-funded R01, R35, and R37 awards for the purchase of single equipment systems (such as components of a working microscope).
The deadline for these supplement applications is March 30, 2020.
Continue reading “NIGMS Administrative Supplements for Equipment”NIH has published two new funding opportunity announcements (FOAs): PAR-20-089, Biomedical Data Repository (U24 – Clinical Trials Not Allowed) and PAR-20-097, Biomedical Knowledgebase (U24 – Clinical Trials Not Allowed). As noted in the FOAs, data repositories and knowledgebases have distinct functions, metrics for success, and sustainability needs. In order to support these resources most effectively, NIGMS intends to fund them as separate cooperative agreement grants. NIGMS applications proposing a free-standing data repository or knowledgebase resource must apply under one of these FOAs. Thus, applications submitted as R01s or R35s will not be considered for funding.
For questions about NIGMS’ support for these resources, please contact Veerasamy Ravichandran.
If you’re considering applying for our Limited Competition: NIGMS National and Regional Resources (R24 – Clinical Trial Not Allowed) announcement (PAR-19-301) for the September 26 receipt date, don’t miss our upcoming webinar:
Monday, August 5, 1:00-2:00 p.m. ET
Continue reading “Webinar for NIGMS National and Regional Resources Program Applicants”We’re offering administrative supplements to NIGMS-funded P20, P30, P41, R01, R35, R37, and RM1 awards for the purchase of helium recovery systems. The deadline for these supplement applications is August 5, 2019.
Note that:
Continue reading “NIGMS Administrative Supplements for Helium Recovery Systems”UPDATE: The slides [PDF, 296KB] from the National and Regional Resources Webinar have been posted.
Research resources provide access to technologies, methods, and expertise that are not generally available to individual laboratories. Large-scale research resources can significantly broaden access to cutting-edge technologies and can achieve economies of scale not possible for facilities serving individual institutions.
We have just published a new funding opportunity announcement (FOA) to support national and regional (multistate) resources for biomedical research that will provide access to state-of-the-art facilities, equipment, technologies, research tools, and software to many users. We expect the impact of these resources and the number of users to be on a similar scale to what is achieved by synchrotron beamlines and cryo-electron microscopy centers.
Continue reading “Funding Opportunity: NIGMS National and Regional Resources”As announced earlier in the fiscal year, NIGMS is offering administrative supplements to NIGMS-funded R01, R35, and R37 awards for the purchase of single pieces of equipment.
The deadline for these supplement applications has been extended to June 25, 2019.
Continue reading “Extended Deadline to June 25: NIGMS Administrative Supplements for Equipment”UPDATE: For additional information, see the Notice of Availability of Administrative Supplements for Equipment Purchases for NIGMS Awardees, NOT-GM-18-022. Applications are due May 31.
NIGMS is offering administrative supplements of between $50,000 and $250,000 for the well-justified purchase of single pieces of equipment. In past years, we issued separate funding announcements (PA-15-089 and PA-16-125) for this purpose. This year, however, we will accept requests for equipment supplements from Principal Investigators (PIs) who hold NIGMS R01, R35, R37, or R15 awards under PA-18-591, Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional).
Eligible investigators are strongly encouraged to discuss potential requests with their program directors before submitting applications. Two or more NIGMS grantees at the same institution may submit separate but cross-referenced requests, where the funds requested reflect the actual proportion of the time that the shared equipment would be used by each PI. However, under no circumstances may a joint request exceed $400,000 in direct costs. The requested supplemental budget cannot exceed the total year direct cost amount of the parent award. PIs may not request future year funds. NIGMS strongly encourages investigators to seek matching funds from their institutions or elsewhere, and to ensure that follow-up expenses (such as maintenance contracts) will be covered from other available funds. Institutional contributions and commitment will be factored into funding decisions.
Continue reading “NIGMS Administrative Supplements for Equipment”
I would like to call your attention to two program announcements recently published in the NIH Guide:
These announcements provide updated instructions for both pre-applications and full applications for Biomedical Technology Research Resource (BTRR) grants. The BTRR program supports development and dissemination of advanced technologies that enable biomedical research The BTRR centers create a wide range of technologies and work with thousands of NIH-supported investigators each year.
The X02 pre-application is strongly recommended. The pre-application provides an opportunity for prospective applicants to receive feedback from both peer reviewers and NIGMS program staff as they formulate their plans for a complex, lengthy proposal for a P41 grant.
Following an evaluation in 2016, we have revised the BTRR program, while preserving the fundamental mission of developing and providing access to advanced technologies. Susan Gregurick, director of our Biomedical Technology, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology Division, presented on the evaluation and proposed program changes at the September 2016 NIGMS Advisory Council meeting.
Revisions to the program have changed the structure of a BTRR to give the investigators who run the centers more flexibility in how technologies are shared with the community. A new feature, “Technology Development Partnerships,” will enable centers to rapidly adopt and incorporate emerging technologies developed elsewhere that advance a BTRR’s overall mission, rather than focus entirely on technologies developed “in-house.”
The program also will provide investigators with greater flexibility to tailor a center’s approach to technology innovation, user access and training, and dissemination according to the specific technologies being developed and communities being served. At the same time, the program will place a greater emphasis on actively moving technologies out of the BTRR and into the wider community as quickly as possible. We anticipate that most BTRR centers will not be funded beyond three cycles (15 years), and we will require investigators involved with this program to formulate a sustainability plan for their research resources.
The submission date for the first round of X02 pre-applications is August 15, 2017. Future submission dates will follow a regular schedule, occurring twice per year in March and July. That timing allows nine months from submission of the X02 until the anticipated submission of a resulting full application in January or May, respectively.
The next submission date for full applications for a P41 BTRR is September 25, 2017. This is the only submission date for funding in Fiscal Year 2018. In future years, applications will be accepted twice per year, in January and May, with no September submission. To improve consistency in the review of competing applications, the NIH Center for Scientific Review will convene a special study section to review all NIGMS P41 BTRR applications together. There will be no site visits.
NIGMS also supports technology development through several other programs. To help investigators determine which technology development program is right for their project, we’ve posted a decision tree on the NIGMS website. It includes descriptions of the programs designed to support specific stages of technology development.
I welcome questions or comments about these FOAs or our technology development programs in general.
NIGMS and the National Eye Institute (NEI) are leading a new NIH Common Fund program: Transformative High Resolution Cryo-Electron Microscopy. This initiative will establish national service centers to increase research capacity for molecular structure determination by high resolution cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The centers will provide access to state-of-the-art equipment, technical support and cross-training for the production and analysis of high resolution cryo-EM data. An open application process will offer equal-opportunity access to researchers nationwide.
The NIH Common Fund recently issued a funding opportunity announcement for these national centers. The application deadline is June 30, 2017, with optional letters of intent due by May 30. For more information about the cryo-EM centers announcement, please email me. Please also help us get the word out by letting your community know of this opportunity.
We would like to tell you about two new technology development funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) recently published in the NIH Guide. We previously wrote about the approval of these programs by our Advisory Council. They are part of an ongoing effort to facilitate early stage, investigator-initiated work to create or improve tools for biomedical research. We think the two FOAs briefly described below will stimulate early stage technology research and development by allowing scientists to focus on making the technology work before they begin to apply those tools to biomedical research questions.
Exploratory Research for Technology Development (PAR-17-046): This program will support modest 2-year R21 grants to develop a new technology or radically improve an existing one. Projects will be high-risk and have no preliminary data. The proposed technology should be justified by a significant biomedical research need, but the proposal should not include the application of the technology to a biomedical problem—it should focus on technology development.
Focused Technology Research and Development (PAR-17-045): This program will support R01 grants that are entirely focused on the development of an emerging technology with a strong potential to impact biomedical research. The program will not allow inclusion of a significant biomedical research problem because the technology will not be ready for that until the project is over. These grants will be renewable only once.
The deadline for the first round of applications is February 16, 2017.
To help investigators determine which technology development program is right for their project, we’ve posted a decision tree on the NIGMS website. It includes descriptions of the programs designed to support all stages of technology development.
We welcome questions or comments about these FOAs or our technology development programs in general.