Model Organisms, Part 3: A Look at All RPGs for Six Models

We are most appreciative of the feedback we’ve received, through the blog and elsewhere, on NIH support of model organism research. In part 1 of this series, we mentioned that we asked two separate groups to analyze NIH applications and awards. In parts 1 and 2 we primarily focused on R01-based data that were curated and analyzed by our Office of Portfolio Analysis. In part 3, we show results from a broader range of research project grant (RPG) data that were prepared and analyzed by our Office of Research Information Systems. This group used an automated thesaurus-based text mining system which delves into not only public data such as project titles, abstracts, public health relevance statements, but also the specific aims contained in RPG applications. This is the same approach we use in our “Research, Condition, and Disease Category” (or RCDC) reports, available on the NIH RePORT website. We begin with an automated text-mining process which scans each project, and matches it against a custom thesaurus that draws upon many sources of scientific and medical concepts. The result is a project index of weighted terms and concepts which can be used in the next step – categorization. For the analysis I’m sharing today, NIH scientific information analysts defined new categories representative of six model organisms – Drosophila, C. elegans, zebrafish, Xenopus, yeast, and Arabidopsis – to examine model organism funding in NIH RPGs across fiscal years 2008 through 201...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - Category: Research Authors: Tags: blog Open Mike Funding data model organisms Source Type: funding