July 5, 2007

News Articles

• Reviewing Peer Review
• NIAID Seeks to Expand TB Research
  • Research Opportunities
  • A Global Threat
• Conflict of Interest Policies for Reviewers Pass the Test
• NIH Director's Bridge Awards Funding: Round Two
• Mali Service Center Gets New Director

Opportunities and Resources

• Get Genotype and Phenotype Data for Your Research
• New Opportunity for Research Focuses on Women's Health

Advice Corner

• Can an Unscored Application Be Worth Revising?
• Publication Pointers on Progress Reports and Articles
  • What to Include in Progress Reports
  • Always Cite Us in Your Publications
• Reader Question
  • Funding Opportunities for Commercializing Innovations

New Funding Opportunities

• See the list.

	News Articles

Reviewing Peer Review

Designing a better peer review approach is the charge of two new working groups, one external and one internal.

In response to burgeoning numbers of applications and flat budgets, these groups will explore how to strengthen peer review to make sure it not only identifies the best possible research for NIH to fund but also uses the best peer reviewers.

Both working groups will gather information from investigators, grantee institutions, health organizations, and NIH about the context, criteria, and culture of peer review. See Request for Information (RFI): NIH System to Support Biomedical and Behavioral Research and Peer Review for more information.

In December 2007, the external working group will present its findings to the Advisory Committee to the Director, and the internal working group will present to the NIH Director's Steering Committee. Both working groups will meet together in January 2008 to recommend the next steps.

NIAID Seeks to Expand TB Research

As part of a push to bolster tuberculosis (TB) drug development research, NIAID is partnering with Eli Lilly and Company and the Foundation for NIH. Lilly formed a new nonprofit research organization, Partnership for TB Early Phase Drug Discovery, to focus on early discovery and development of new drugs for TB, including emerging multi-drug (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB.

This new partnership will enhance the early phase drug discovery pipeline, not compete with efforts of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development. The partnership's goal is to avoid redundancy.

This increased emphasis on TB drug development opens research opportunities for the TB community. The Partnership will have as many as 25 staff researchers and by joining the partnership, academic researchers with expertise in chemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology can benefit from the knowledge of medicinal chemistry of their counterparts in the pharmaceutical industry.

The Partnership for TB Early Phase Drug Discovery will have access to large libraries of chemical compounds that will be tested against the most promising molecular Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) targets to increase the pipeline of drug candidates for preclinical development.

Other partners are Afya World Medicines, Inc., the Infectious Disease Research Institute, Jubilant Biosys, Merck and Company, the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, and the University of Washington Department of Global Health.

Research Opportunities

NIAID continues to support all aspects of TB research. These include fundamental science; host-pathogen interactions; the different manifestations of TB, including latency, pediatric and disseminated TB, and TB in HIV co-infected populations; and translational and clinical studies to develop new health care interventions.

We are seeking applications to study drug-resistant TB and to develop new drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics to rapidly identify, treat, and prevent drug-resistant TB. Apply under Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research Opportunities and the recent RFA Pharmacological Approaches to Combating Antimicrobial Resistance.

Go to Tuberculosis -- Available Research Programs at NIAID and TB Networks, Consortia, and Partners.

A Global Threat

As recent news stories highlight, MDR- and XDR-TB are emerging global threats. Strains of Mtb, the pathogen that causes TB, have become resistant to the most effective TB drugs. People with a compromised immune system, like those with HIV/AIDS, are especially prone to developing TB after being infected with a drug-resistant or drug-sensitive strain and may die from TB even if receiving antiretroviral therapy. Thus, MDR- and XDR-TB threaten TB control programs worldwide and HIV/TB control programs in countries with large numbers of HIV and Mtb coinfected persons.

XDR-TB is a form of multi-drug resistant TB that is insensitive to isoniazid, rifampin, any fluoroquinolone drug plus at least one of the newer injectable drugs: capreomycin, kanamycin, and amikacin.

In 2006, experts defined XDR-TB, its clinical management, and approaches to protect public health. Its emergence reflects weaknesses in TB management that ultimately affect populations worldwide and highlight the importance of fundamental and translational research to improve TB management.

NIAID spent $120 million on TB research in fiscal year 2006. Also see our June 18, 2007, article, "New Tuberculosis Site and Research Agenda."

Conflict of Interest Policies for Reviewers Pass the Test

As an applicant or a reviewer, you can rest assured knowing that NIH's procedures successfully prevent reviewers from reviewing applications in cases of conflict of interest. This new finding comes from the Government Accountability Office, which examined NIH's conflict of interest policies for peer reviewers.

GAO looked at NIH practices and reached its conclusion after interviewing NCI and NIAID officials and reviewing the NIH policy manual. It found that the latter sufficiently describes how peer reviewers identify and resolve their conflicts of interest and how NIH monitors peer reviewer compliance.

For more information, read GAO's report NIH Conflict of Interest.

NIH Director's Bridge Awards Funding: Round Two

NIAID is awarding NIH Director's Bridge Award funds to eligible applications. NIAID will notify PIs of funding once their applications are forwarded to NIH.

In the second phase of the funds, NIAID applicants fared well and received approximately $7.5 million of the requested $11.4 million. See our April 20, 2007, newsletter article, "NIH Director's Bridge Awards."

NIH modeled its program on NIAID's Bridge Awards program. NIH decides the funding of NIH Director's Bridge Awards yearly, and we have no information about whether it will be funded next year. Either way NIAID's R56-Bridge Awards will continue. Remember that you cannot apply directly for either program.

Mali Service Center Gets New Director

Please join us in welcoming Sean Cantella, MBA, the new director of the Mali Service Center. The Mali Service Center manages NIAID's research funds and provides administrative support to research in Mali.

Until recently, Mr. Cantella worked as the administrative and financial officer for the Peace Corps in Africa where he prepared and managed a $3.1 million annual budget. Mr. Cantella has been working in West Africa since 1999.

	Opportunities and Resources

Get Genotype and Phenotype Data for Your Research

You can request individual-level genotype and phenotype data from dbGaP, the database of Genotype and Phenotype operated by the National Library of Medicine’s National Center for Biotechnology Information.

The database is an archive that lets you access genome-wide association studies to examine the relationship between phenotype and genotype. Connecting phenotype and genotype data provides information about the genes possibly involved in a disease process or condition, which is critical for better understanding the disease and for developing new diagnostic methods and treatments.

You can find out more about the database at About dbGaP. Find out more about the data and the request procedure in the Eye on PI section of the May 2007 NIH Extramural Nexus.

New Opportunity for Research Focuses on Women's Health

NIH is looking to support innovative research on women’s health or sex and gender differences. For more information, go to the Advancing Novel Science in Women's Health Research (R21) program announcement.

The announcement covers several research areas, including those outlined in the FY 2007 NIH Research Priorities for Women’s Health. As a co-sponsor with NIH's Office of Research on Women’s Health, NIAID is particularly interested in projects involving HIV and opportunistic infections.

While we're on the topic of women, check out NIH's Women in Biomedical Careers Web site, and read about the NIH Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers, which we mentioned in our May 22, 2007, article, "New Portal Targets Women Scientists."

	Advice Corner

Can an Unscored Application Be Worth Revising?

Yes. An unscored application is not necessarily a bad application. It may even be higher quality than applications that received a score. See If Your Application Was Not Fundable or Not Scored in the NIH Grant Cycle: Application to Renewal.

So don't despair if your application undergoes a streamlined review and doesn't receive an overall impact/priority score. Many investigators with unscored applications later succeed.

Here are points to keep in mind if your application doesn't receive an overall impact/priority score:

• Since you'll receive an abbreviated summary statement, you'll have to dig deep to uncover problems with your application. Your program officer and experts at your institution can help.
• If your application's problems are fixable, revise and resubmit it. Among applicants who resubmit, a higher percentage succeed on their second try than on their first, and still more succeed on their third attempt (i.e., initial application plus two resubmissions).

Find out more by reading Advice for Resubmission and Unfunded Applicants questions and answers, Noncompetitive Applications Get a Streamlined Review, and Part 11b. Not Funded, Reapply.

Publication Pointers on Progress Reports and Articles

We'd like to remind you about publications you need to include in your progress report and about NIAID citations in your article.

What to Include in Progress Reports

When submitting your progress report, remember to include only the publications for that grant, not all the publications for the past year. NIAID evaluates your progress on a specific grant, not your overall progress as a researcher.

People often have no publications the first year; make sure you state that you have no publications if that is the case. See the PHS 2590 instructions on publications.

Always Cite Us in Your Publications

As a grantee receiving federal funds, you should cite NIH's support in your articles. It's also important because success stories strengthen our case to Congress that the money they give us is spent well, which helps preserve the flow of funds to grantees.

Grantees receiving federal funds should cite NIH support not only in journals, but also in press releases, bid solicitations, and other documents. Include the level of federal support and the amount from other sources.

Got something newsworthy? Our Office of Communications and Government Relations can help announce any exciting new discoveries. Call as soon as you know the article has been accepted for publication, so we can determine how to best highlight your findings and field questions from the press.

For help or more information, contact Ms. Laurie Doepel, chief, News and Public Information Branch, at 301-435-8595 or doepel@niaid.nih.gov.

Reader Question

A reader asked this question:

"Are there other funding opportunities besides SBIR for commercializing innovations?"

Almost all NIH funding opportunities are open to for-profit organizations. Search the NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID and contact other institutes. Note that you will face strong competition with funding opportunities open to large companies and academic investigators.

	New Funding Opportunities

• RFA-MH-08-040, Methods of Statistical Analysis of DNA Sequence Data for Studies Relating Variation to Disease

See these and older announcements on our NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID.