June 3, 2009
News Articles
Opportunities and Resources
Advice Corner
New Funding Opportunities
News Articles
ARRA Stays Hot for Summer
While some Recovery Act opportunities are over, new ones are coming out—see a full list of NIH initiatives from the NIAID perspective at NIAID Participation in NIH ARRA Opportunities.
Helping Businesses Move Products to Market
Two new ARRA initiatives target companies engaged in research and development (R&D). Designed for all businesses, the first is like a phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) but with fewer restrictions and no requirement for previous phase 1. The second solicits phase 1 SBIR grants.
Closing the Gap With BRDG-SPAN
For the BRDG-SPAN initiative, venture capital-owned companies are eligible to apply.
NIH wants to bridge the chasm between promising R&D and its transition to market through Recovery Act Limited Competition: Biomedical Research, Development, and Growth to Spur the Acceleration of New Technologies (BRDG-SPAN) Pilot Program.
For this unique opportunity, venture capital-owned companies are eligible to apply, as are all U.S.-owned, for-profit organizations doing most of their business in the U.S.
Applications may get funding priority if they are from organizations that have any of these attributes: are small (500 or fewer employees), have limited resources (e.g., an early-stage company), or are positioned to receive funding or in-kind support from a third-party.
Read the announcement for details, but here are the main particulars:
- You can request up to $1 million annual total costs for a maximum of three years.
- Research Plan is limited to 13 pages: 1 for the Specific Aims and 12 for Research Design and Methods.
- NIH is committing at least $35 million.
SBIR Funds Early-Stage Research
Just for small businesses, Recovery Act Limited Competition: Small Business Catalyst Awards for Accelerating Innovative Research aims to spark innovation through high-risk, high-reward R&D with a strong potential for commercial development.
NIH is targeting small businesses that do not have a history of NIH SBIR or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) support. Investigators should propose early-stage ideas that could to lead to major leaps forward rather than incremental improvements of existing technologies.
Before you take the plunge, we advise you to consider carefully whether to apply for this initiative or a regular SBIR opportunity. The table below compares some of the salient features.
Comparison of ARRA and Non-ARRA SBIR Applications
| Type |
Funds |
Funding Level |
Funding Period |
Due Date
(2009) |
Research Plan |
| ARRA SBIR |
Budget can be up to $200,000 in total costs
|
NIH is committing at least $5 million
|
1 year
|
September 1
|
6 pages or less
|
|
Non-ARRA SBIR
(phase 1)
|
Up to $300,000 a year in total costs
|
For comparison: NIAID spent about $30 million for competing phase 1 SBIR grants in FY 2008
|
Up to 2 years
|
August 5—non-AIDS
September 7-- AIDS
|
15 pages or less
|
For both initiatives, applications are due September 1, 2009, for funding in April 2010. Both are subject to ARRA requirements.
For more information about small business awards, contact Dr. Gregory Milman, director, Office for Innovation and Special Programs, preferably by email at gmilman@niaid.nih.gov, or call him at 301-496-8666. Before applying, be sure to watch his narrated Advice on NIH SBIR and STTR Applications.
Human Immunology RFA
A new funding opportunity will support Human Immunology Research Centers to develop safe and effective vaccines. Funded through Recovery Act Limited Competition: Protection of Human Health by Immunology and Vaccines, investigators participating in the consortium will characterize the human immune system at rest and following infection, vaccination, or treatment with adjuvants.
NIAID expects to spend $20 million in FY 2010 for the request for applications, using Recovery Act funds for the first year of the grants and monies from our regular appropriation for subsequent years.
For the U01s, you may ask for up to $1.5 million in total costs in year one and $1.3 million annual total costs in years two through five. For the U19s, those figures are $4.5 million and $4.0 million respectively. Applications are due by October 15, 2009.
As with all Recovery Act grants, investigators must be ready to start work as soon as they get their awards.
If you have any questions, email Dr. Matthew Fenton at fentonm@niaid.nih.gov or call him at 301-496-8973, or email Dr. Helen Quill at hquill@niaid.nih.gov or call her at 301-435-4416.
Seeking Summer Interns?
Was your application to hire summer research interns approved for funding through NIH's Administrative Supplements Providing Summer Research Experiences for Students and Science Educators?
If so, check out a new NIH site that helps you ramp up quickly. Register at Administrative Supplements for Summer Laboratory Personnel to list your lab's positions and areas of science so you can find the right people.
After you learn that we will fund your application, do the following:
- Log in and enter the number of positions you have for each category.
- As you hire people, return to your profile and update the number of slots remaining. After your positions are filled, your information disappears from public view.
For NIAID, the due date to apply for a summer supplement this year was April 17. But other institutes may still have open dates, and we may offer them again next year.
From Diversity Supplement to Tenure: A Success Story
How much of an impact can a diversity supplement have on an investigator's career? Let us count the ways.
Last year we brought you the story of Dr. Olivia Martinez in our August 20 article "Diversity Supplements Jump-Starts Successful Career." Now we're pleased to feature the rise of one of our very own "in house" PIs: Dr. Jesus G. Valenzuela.
Making a Difference
Dr. Valenzuela grew up in Sonora, Mexico, then moved to Arizona and attended graduate school at the University of Arizona. In 1994, his mentor, Dr. Jose Ribeiro, hired him under a Research Supplement for Underrepresented Minorities, now called Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research.
Fifteen years later, Dr. Valenzuela is a tenured investigator in NIAID's Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, serving as chief of the Vector Molecular Biology Section.
A diversity supplement did more than help Dr. Valenzuela finish his research towards his Ph.D. He says, "It opened my eyes to the opportunities NIH has for biomedical careers and gave me the chance to attend NIAID's Bridging the Gap Symposia where I learned all that the Institute offers investigators."
He continues, "I also had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Milton Hernandez, director of NIAID's Office of Special Populations and Research Training, who encouraged me to pursue postdoctoral training at NIAID."
After receiving his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Arizona, Dr. Valenzuela came to NIAID in 1996 as a postdoc in the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases. He became a research fellow in 1999 and a tenure-track investigator in the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research in 2002.
Taking Advantage of Research Supplements
If you're a PI, think about hiring someone under a supplement to expand your workforce.
If you're a member of an underrepresented group, ask a PI supported by NIAID to apply to hire you under a diversity supplement. You may be able to tap into salary, fringe benefits, and research support through a supplement to an existing grant. Read details at Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research.
NIAID also offers research supplements to help promising researchers return to a science career. To find out more, go to Research Supplements.
Opportunities and Resources
New Sample R01 Packs a Double Punch
As our fourth example of a successful R01 application, we have posted a resubmission from a new investigator, the first to fall in both those categories.
Many thanks to Dr. Christopher D. Huston from the University of Vermont's Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics for allowing us to post his outstanding application, Molecular Mechanism of Entamoeba histolytica Phagocytosis.
Find all the samples at Sample R01 Applications and Summary Statements.
IOM Reports on Conflict of Interest
In April, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice made recommendations on addressing conflict of interest, some of which involve NIH and its research community.
You can find a brief of the report at Conflict of Interest in Medical Research, Education, and Practice. Read the full text online free or order it at The National Academies Press.
Advice Corner
Paylines and Percentiles—a Tale of Two "Ps"
Whether in the best of times or the worst of times, paylines and percentiles are at the heart of the funding story. Understanding these concepts requires a bit of homework: you won't find "payline" in the dictionary, and percentiling at NIH differs from standard mathematical processes.
Morphing Paylines
Conceptually paylines are easy to grasp: a payline is a funding cut off point below which we fund applications and above which we do not.
Operationally though, paylines are confusing because their nature and values change throughout the year. Depending on the status of our budget, we may have either no paylines, one or more interim paylines, or one or more actual paylines.
What's an interim payline? Interim paylines are an administrative measure we use to fund high-scoring applications before we have a budget. Because they are not true paylines—based on calculations by our budget office—we do not announce them through NIAID Funding Newsletter and Email Alerts Subscription Center.
Why do we have interim paylines? Interim paylines are important because they let us start making awards early in the fiscal year before we have a budget.
Timing of Paylines for Fiscal Year 2009
To use this year as an example, President Obama signed the federal government's FY 2009 spending bill into law on March 11, six months into the fiscal year, which starts October 1. But using interim paylines, we were able to start awarding grants in the fall.
Here was the sequence this fiscal year: we posted an interim R01 payline in October, other interim paylines in December, actual R01 paylines in March, and other actual paylines in May. While each fiscal year is different, this scenario is fairly typical.
Hopefully this discussion clarifies why you received an alert showing new fiscal year paylines this spring with the same numbers as the interim paylines we had posted on Paylines and Funding months before. Sometimes the numbers change, and sometimes they do not.
There's one more twist: actual paylines can change until we pull them off the Web toward the end of the fiscal year, with one exception: NIAID commits to its R01 paylines for the entire fiscal year.
Payline Alerts
Here are two ways to keep up with payline information:
For more information on the budget process, see Appropriations Set the Dollars and When We Don't Get a Budget.
Learn more about how and why paylines evolve during the year at Paylines and Budget Pages Change Throughout the Year; read more about paylines at Paylines Are a Conservative Funding Cutoff Point in the Strategy for NIH Funding.
Calculating Percentiles
After peer review of an R01, NIH calculates its percentile rank based on the overall impact score assigned by its study section.
Why bother with this step? Percentiling counters priority score creep: over time, many study sections give applications increasingly better scores, compressing them into a narrow range. To counter the effects of score compression, percentiling spreads out overall impact scores across the spectrum of about 99 possible rankings.
Your application is percentiled with others reviewed by your study section only. Normally, NIH matches its overall impact score against a table of relative rankings containing all scores of applications assigned to that study section during the three last review cycles.
But this approach will not be possible during the first year of the new peer review processes while NIH creates a new base of applications scored under the new scheme.
So for the next year, NIH will calculate the percentile base as follows:
- First review cycle in spring 2009: use only applications submitted for that cycle.
- Second review cycle: use applications submitted for first and second cycles.
- Subsequent reviews: use the usual three-cycle base.
NIH determines the relative rank by listing all applications by overall impact score from the three reviews. Then, NIH calculates the percentiles using the following formula (the 0.5 percent is a standard mathematical procedure used for rounding):
| Percentile = |
100 |
x (relative rank minus 0.5) |
|
| Number of Applications |
|
These numbers are then rounded up, e.g., 12.1 becomes 13, to create a whole number percentile ranging from 1 to 99.
Keep in mind that applications with the same score can receive different percentiles if reviewed at different meetings of the same study section. Since percentiles are based on the three rounds of reviews, one-third of the base turns over for each study section meeting.
For more information on this topic, see How Percentiles Are Determined which is part of Understand Paylines and Percentiles in the Strategy for NIH Funding.
Note to Business Offices: Copy Grants on Correspondence
This year we are especially busy dealing with large numbers of ARRA awards in addition to our regular grants. So we are offering you a tip to help boost our efficiency and, as a result, our service to you.
Be sure that your institution's business office copies your program officer when it sends information to your grants management specialist. That simple step to keep all parties informed can help speed things up on our end.
Make That Publication Public
It may not be foremost in your mind, but NIH's public access policy is the law. We are concerned that many people are still not complying: NIH is monitoring compliance, and there will be repercussions for lapses.
Public access has two parts: submitting and citing. The policy applies to peer-reviewed papers published in journals, not book chapters, editorials, or reviews.
Submitting
To comply with the submission requirement, all final peer-reviewed manuscripts reporting research funded by NIH, even partially, must be submitted to PubMed Central (PMC). This is true even if the full text is on a public Web site and whether or not the PI is an author.
One erroneous assumption we are seeing is that the journal is doing everything. Instead, make sure that one of these four submission methods is in motion:
- Let a journal listed on Journals That Submit All NIH-Funded Final Published Articles to PubMed Central submit the final published article on your behalf.
- Arrange to have the publisher put the article in the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS).
- Submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript yourself in the NIHMS. For more information, see NIH's Submission Methods.
- Complete a submission the publisher already uploaded into NIHMS .
If you are unsure what to do, ask the journal which method to use.
Another mistake is confusing the up to 12-month embargo period with the timing of the author's submission. Many authors are submitting publications long after publication, which does not comply with the policy.
If you are submitting yourself (method 3), do the following:
- Submit the final peer-reviewed manuscript shortly after it is accepted; indicate the embargo period at that time.
- Send manuscripts to PMC through NIHMS using your eRA Commons login. For more information on uploading your manuscript, see NIHMS System Slide Show Help.
- Be sure to add grant numbers and PIs for all the grants cited in the publication—see slide 9 and slide 10.
Citing
Don't forget to cite papers properly. Check with the corresponding author if you are not an author and do not have the information. If a publication appears to us to be noncompliant, you and your business office will receive an email from your program officer.
To cite properly, take one of these steps:
- If your PMC ID is ready yet, include it at the end of the citation.
- Use this format: PMCID: PMC544119.
- Note: PubMed (PM ID) and PMC (PMC ID) numbers are different. If you have the PubMed ID, use the National Library of Medicine's PMID: PMCID Converter to find out the PMC ID or vice versa.
- If your PMC ID is not ready, do one of the following:
- If using method one or two listed below, state "PMC Journal - In Process" at the end of the citation.
- If using method three or four, put the NIH Manuscript Submission System number (NIHMS ID) at the end of the citation.
Read more in our Public Access of Publications SOP, and see NIH's Public Access site including Public Access Frequently Asked Questions.
Reader Questions
Feel free to send us a question at deaweb@niaid.nih.gov. After responding to you, we may include your question in the newsletter, incorporate it into the NIAID Research Funding site, or both.
"If I qualify as a new or early-stage investigator, would being a co-investigator on a second R01 with a more senior professor who will be the PI jeopardize my new investigator status? "—Josh Munger, University of Rochester
No. Your being an investigator (listed as key personnel) on another person's grant would not jeopardize your status as a new or early stage investigator. That status counts only for the PI, not key personnel.
"Can I transfer an ARRA award from one institution to another if I relocate?"—an anonymous reader
At present, the answer is no. NIH is looking into this so it may change, but for now you may not transfer the grant.
"Please answer the following three questions."—Divaker Choubey, University of Cincinnati
1. How do you determine the amount for R56-Bridge awards?
Generally, we fund R56-Bridge awards at study section-recommended dollars. We cover this in our NIAID R56-Bridge Award SOP.
2. How do you decide the amount of a two-year ARRA R01?
For a new application, we fund direct costs for the first year at the study section-recommended level, and direct costs for the second year at the same amount.
For competing renewals, we fund direct costs for the first year at 20 percent more than direct costs (less equipment) of the last year of the noncompeting grant. If you are requesting less than a 20 percent increase in direct costs, we fund you at the study section-recommended level.
Direct costs for the second year of a competing renewal will be the same level as the first year.
3. If after the award of a two-year ARRA R01 the PI receives a better score, will you consider changing the ARRA award to a regular one?"
No. We cannot change an ARRA award to a regular one—see If I accept a two-year ARRA R01 and then learn that my resubmission scored below the 12 percentile and is eligible for a regular R01, can I terminate the ARRA award and accept the traditional R01? (Editor's note: outdated link removed.)
New Funding Opportunities
See these and older announcements at NIAID Funding Opportunities List.
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