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Remembering Ward Smith
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. Ward first joined NIGMS in 2007 as a program director in our former Division of Cell Biology and Biophysics. Among his major contributions to NIGMS were his management of the Protein Structure Initiative, for which he was honored with an NIH Director’s Award, and of the NIH-supported synchrotron facilities. Ward also oversaw a large portfolio of grants in biomedical technology. The recipient...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 23, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Matt Mills Tags: News NIGMS Staff News Source Type: blogs

Webinar and Other Resources for New MIRA ESI Funding Opportunity
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. EDT. To access the webinar, visit the WebEx meeting page and enter the meeting number 126 938 7475 and the password NIGMS. For an audio-only presentation, call 1-650-479-3208 (US/Canada) and enter access code 126 938 7475. We plan to post the archived webinar and slide...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 22, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Meetings/Events Early Stage Investigator MIRA Webinars Source Type: blogs

Funding Trends: MIRA Applications and Overall Impact Scores
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 ...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 21, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Trends Funding Outcomes Funding Policies MIRA Source Type: blogs

Retiring Peer Review Site Visits for NIGMS Training Programs
At NIGMS, site visits have traditionally been part of the peer review process for some training program renewal applications. The visits, which generally happened every other renewal cycle for existing programs, were conducted by NIGMS staff and review panel members to gain additional information about the programs. For those of you who are program directors or peer reviewers of our undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral training programs, it may feel as if site visits went away a long time ago. This is because changes to most of our training programs required new application submissions (see our previous post), which r...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 15, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Peer Review Research Administration Training/Fellowships/Career Development Source Type: blogs

Webinar for IDeA-CTR Program Applicants
If you’re preparing an Institutional Development Award Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) grant application for the October 7 receipt date, don’t miss our upcoming webinar: Thursday, August 6, 3:00-4:30 p.m. ET During the webinar, IDeA program staff will answer your questions about changes in the goals, objectives, and organizational structures of the IDeA-CTR program, as described in the funding opportunity announcement. Principal investigators who plan to submit new or renewal applications are encouraged to attend. To access the webinar, visit the WebEx meeting page and ente...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - July 14, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Meetings/Events Institutional Development Award Preparing an Application Webinars Source Type: blogs

ALS2 Funding Opportunity: Fundamental Research in Underlying Causes of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
We’re pleased to announce our participation in the Accelerating Leading-edge Science in ALS (ALS2) program (NOT-RM-20-019). ALS2 is a $25 million NIH Common Fund initiative to spur innovative research into the basic biology of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) through the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award. NIGMS encourages our community of basic scientists working on relevant processes to consider applying for this opportunity. ALS is a devastating disease with no known cure. The development of effective therapeutics can benefit tremendously from basic ALS research that 1.) tests highly novel concepts, ...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 30, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities NIH Common Fund Source Type: blogs

Webinar for Postdoctoral Research Associate Training (PRAT) Program Applicants
We’re hosting a webinar for students and fellows interested in the PRAT Program for the October 2, 2020, receipt date: Tuesday, July 14, 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET PRAT is a competitive 3-year fellowship program that prepares trainees for leadership positions in biomedical careers. Training includes a mentored laboratory research experience and intensive career and leadership development activities. PRAT fellows conduct research in laboratories in the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) in basic biomedical research areas within the NIGMS mission. These areas include, but are not limited to, biological che...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 26, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Meetings/Events Training/Fellowships/Career Development PRAT Preparing an Application Webinars Source Type: blogs

NIGMS Priorities for Small Business Development of Sepsis Diagnostics and Therapeutics
Last summer, we published a notice of information on our priorities for sepsis research that applies to all active NIGMS funding opportunity announcements. We’ve now published a notice of special interest (NOT-GM 20-028) to promote early-stage research and development projects through the NIH SBIR/STTR program.  We’re interested in receiving applications from small businesses or from small businesses and their academic partners that propose to develop novel tools and technologies for sepsis research, detection, and treatment. We’re specifically interested in diagnostic tools, predictive clinical algorithms, a...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 22, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Research Administration Sepsis Research Source Type: blogs

Funding Opportunities: Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations (RADx-UP)
We’re pleased to announce our participation in Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations (RADx-UP), a $500 million NIH-wide initiative to reduce morbidity and mortality disparities for vulnerable and underserved populations disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The initiative will fund a national coordination center and a group of interlinked projects across the United States aimed at improving COVID-19 testing and understanding COVID-19 health disparities. The announcements for RADx-UP are: RADx-UP Coordination and Data Collection Center (U24 Clinical Trial Optional)RFA-OD-20-013Provides...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 16, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities COVID-19 Source Type: blogs

What Can We Do to Combat Anti-Black Racism in the Biomedical Research Enterprise?
The recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, in addition to the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on African Americans, are wrenching reminders of the many harms that societal racism, inequality, and injustice inflict on the Black community. These injustices are rooted in centuries of oppression—including slavery and Jim Crow, redlining, school segregation, and mass incarceration—that continue to influence American life, including the biomedical research enterprise. Despite leading an NIH Institute whose mission includes building a diverse scientific workforce, at NIGMS we’ve struggled with...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 10, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Matt Mills Tags: Director’s Messages News Training/Fellowships/Career Development Research Resources Science Communication Source Type: blogs

Seeking Feedback on Our New Strategic Plan
As I described in my last post, we recently released a progress and outcomes report [PDF] highlighting the work we’ve done to meet the goals and objectives of the NIGMS 2015-2020 strategic plan [PDF]. We’re now beginning development of a new strategic plan that will describe NIGMS’ overarching goals, strategic objectives, and implementation tactics in support of the Institute’s mission over the next 5 years. We recently posted a draft strategic plan framework [PDF] that describes these goals and objectives and are seeking your input on this framework via a request for information (RFI). The RFI will ...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 8, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Director’s Messages News Requests for Information NIGMS Strategic Plan Source Type: blogs

Funding Opportunity: NIGMS Institutional Predoctoral Training Grants
We’re pleased to announce that the NIGMS Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Predoctoral Institutional Research Training Grant (T32) for the basic biomedical sciences has been reissued (PAR-20-213). This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) continues our efforts to ensure biomedical graduate research training keeps pace with the rapidly evolving biomedical research enterprise. The goal of the T32 program is to develop a diverse pool of scientists with the technical, operational, and professional skills needed to advance their chosen fields and transition into productive careers in the biomedical ...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 3, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Training/Fellowships/Career Development Biomedical Graduate Education Predoctoral Source Type: blogs

Reflecting on Our Strategic Priorities
In my first post as NIGMS director in 2013, I discussed the need to develop a new strategic plan to guide our efforts and to ensure that we invest taxpayer money as efficiently and effectively as possible. Our current strategic plan emerged as a product of collaboration between all functional units of our Institute, with valuable input from external stakeholders, and it’s been used to guide management decisions at NIGMS for the last 5 years. Since publication of this strategic plan in 2015, the Institute has undertaken programmatic and organizational changes to better achieve the goals set forth in the plan. I th...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - June 1, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Director’s Messages News NIGMS Strategic Plan Source Type: blogs

Funding Opportunity: IDeA Networks for Clinical and Translational Research
I’m pleased to announce that the Institutional Development Award Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) funding opportunity announcement (PAR-20-175) has been reissued. IDeA-CTR funds statewide or multistate regional networks that support: Development of infrastructure and human resources required to conduct clinical and translational research Enhancement of IDeA institutions’ and investigators’ ability to develop competitive clinical and translational research programs Collaboration and coordination of clinical and translational research activities spanning IDeA institution...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 18, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Institutional Development Award Research Capacity Building Source Type: blogs

Policy on Late Submissions of NIGMS Applications Due in May 2020
Because many people in the research community are facing considerable challenges trying to juggle various responsibilities during the COVID-19 outbreak, NIGMS will accommodate late application submissions for due dates in May 2020 for all NIGMS-specific FOAs (see NOT-GM-20-029). For applications submitted through June 30, 2020, institutions do not need to request advance permission or provide a cover letter to justify a late submission to these FOAs. Applications with due dates prior to May 25 should use FORMS E and those with due dates on or after May 25 should use FORMS F, regardless of the date of submission. CUR...
Source: NIGMS Feedback Loop Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - May 8, 2020 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Funding Opportunities Research Administration Funding Policies Submitting an Application Source Type: blogs