July 3, 2006
News Articles
Opportunities and Resources
Advice Corner
New Initiatives
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News Articles |
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Revised SF 424 Forms May Affect You
In a move that may affect some applicants negatively, Grants.gov is posting revised SF 424 R&R forms, obliging NIH to update its existing funding opportunity announcements (FOA).
You will need to be vigilant if you are in the middle of preparing an application or start using an existing FOA that has the older forms -- beware of any FOA issued before June 15.
Why? Once the new FOAs are live, Grants.gov will not accept an application using the old forms -- we have no choice about that.
At that point, you must switch to the new forms, even if you have already begun preparing your application. No special action is required if you start out with the new forms.
During the next few months, the two sets of FOAs will coexist in Grants.gov as NIH switches all existing FOAs except those with single receipt dates, e.g., most requests for applications.
NIH will avoid making changes around receipt dates and expects to post updated FOAs for the following grant types:
By July 15 --
- R03, Small Research
- R15, Academic Research Enhancement Awards (AREA)
- R21, Exploratory/Developmental Phase I, R33, Exploratory/Developmental Grants Phase II, and R21/R33
- R34, Clinical Trial Planning
By September 15 --
- R13, Conference and U13, Conference Cooperative Agreements
- R41, Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I and R42, Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II
- R43, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I and R44, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II
Key points for applicants
- When you open a FOA, check the version. New forms and application guides will be marked "Version 2." If you find both old and new form packages, obviously, you will use the new one.
- Before you submit, check the version again to make sure the new one isn't in Grants.gov. If it is, download the new forms and cut-and-paste your content into the new forms.
- If you get your forms from your business office, make sure your organization has updated its form packages. If the package is an old one, go to Grants.gov to be sure the new one is not online.
Form changes
Among other revisions are four new, modified, or relocated sections to the PHS 398 Research Plan component of the SF 424 R&R:
- Inclusion Enrollment Report and Progress Report Publication List -- now separate attachments.
- Preliminary Studies/Progress Report -- now separate to avoid being counted in the page limit validations.
- Select Agent Research and Multiple PI Leadership Plan -- new sections.
- Data and Safety Monitoring -- moved to section 8. Protection of Human Subjects.
For the full list of new items, see the June 22, 2006, NIH Guide notice.
On another note, the number of electronic applications NIH is receiving is right on target. We expected to receive 2,500 applications. Five days after the June receipt date, NIH had about 2,100 verified R03 and R21 applications, and another 400 were in the two-day waiting period.
Streamlined Reviews for Fellowships
Beginning with the August 5, 2006, receipt date, NIH will start using streamlined review for postdoctoral fellowship (F32) applications. This practice has been in place for more than a decade for investigator-initiated applications in the R series, such as the R01 and R21.
Because reviewers do not discuss streamlined applications, initial peer review becomes more efficient, allowing time for longer discussions of applications likely to be funded.
For fellowships, reviewers will designate about 40 percent of the applications as noncompetitive and will not assign them a priority score. Applicants will still receive summary statements with reviewers' critiques.
For more on streamlining, see Noncompetitive Applications Get a Streamlined Review, and read the full June 20, 2006, NIH Guide notice for the fellowship review changes.
Early Budget Outlook for Next Fiscal Year
Level budgets continue to loom on the horizon. "For the past couple of years, NIH's budget has been disturbingly flat," NIAID Director Dr. Anthony S. Fauci commented to NIAID's main advisory Council in May, "and this demands difficult choices."
In the President's budget request, the first step in the annual appropriations process, NIAID's FY 2007 allocation would rise to $4.4 billion, just $12 million or 0.3 percent more than this fiscal year.
Still, as Dr. Fauci noted, we continue to fare better than other institutes and centers and NIH overall, whose budgets are either flat or declining. One exception is NIH's Office of the Director, which would get an increase of almost $140 million, mainly for advanced product development of biodefense countermeasures and Roadmap activities.
Over the long haul, NIAID's funding has soared -- from $320 million in fiscal year 1984 when we were one of the smaller institutes. Our gains reflect growth first in AIDS and then biodefense research, and more recently, a slightly greater proportion of the doubling than the mean for NIH.
NIAID's proposed increase for 2007 targets pandemic influenza, HIV and AIDS vaccine research, and our contribution to the NIH Genes and Environment Initiative.
The latter program will explore the relative contributions of genes and the environment to major public health disorders, including asthma, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, osteoporosis, cataracts, hypertension, Parkinson's, autism, obesity, and others.
Find budget details in Labor, HHS, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations -- FY 2007.
Welcome New Staff, Hail All Knights!
At the May Council meeting, Dr. Fauci announced new appointments that he said serve as "good examples of our ability to attract extraordinarily high-qualified people."
Dr. Thomas Quinn is NIAID's new associate director for international research in addition to being a professor of medicine, international health, and molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins University. His research explores the epidemiology, virology, and immunology of HIV globally.
Dr. Alan Fix is now chief of the Vaccine Clinical Research Branch in the Division of AIDS. Before joining NIAID in 2002, he was a faculty member in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he studied the epidemiology of infectious diseases.
Dr. Joanne L. Rhoads has become associate director for clinical research in the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. She has many years of experience in clinical medicine and clinical teaching as well as in laboratory and clinical research.
Division of Intramural Research
Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger, senior investigator in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, will establish a new Molecular Pathogenesis and Epidemiology of Influenza Virus Group this summer. A leading figure in influenza research, he's an author of the recent papers on sequencing and delineation of the 1918 pandemic flu strain.
Dr. Philip Murphy is chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Immunology. His research focuses on the molecular biology of leukocyte chemotactic receptors and their biological functions. Since 2003 he had been acting chief of the laboratory.
Office of Acquisitions
Due to a recent restructuring, NIAID's Office of Acquisitions has four new branch chiefs.
Ms. Barbara Shadrick has become chief of the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Research Contracts Branch B. She joined NIAID in 1999 and has over 33 years of acquisition experience.
Ms. Olga Acosta-Poston is now chief of the Acquisition Management and Policy Branch. Before coming to NIAID in 2002, she was the chief of NIH's Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Contracting Branch.
Ms. Sharon Kraft is the new chief of the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Research Contracts Branch. Ms. Kraft joined the branch in 2002 as leader of the Special Project BioShield Team effort. She brings over 25 years of acquisition experience to her new job.
Ms. Shelly Goergen is chief of the Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation Research Contracts Branch. She joined the NIH from GSA where she oversaw large IT system development and integration contracts.
Knights in White Lab Coats
In March 2006, Drs. Bob Gwadz and Lou Miller received the Malian National Medal of Honor Rank of Knight for their work on malaria vaccines as did Cliff Lane for his research on HIV/AIDS.
This is one of the highest distinctions in Mali, a West African country where our scientists have worked for many years.
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Opportunities and Resources |
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New AIDS Research Funding from amfAR
The non-profit Foundation for AIDS Research is looking to fund grants and fellowships that will study the rectal transmission of HIV. Research proposals can explore biomedical, preclinical, clinical, epidemiological, social, behavioral, ethical, or policy issues relevant to the topic.
Grants from amfAR give faculty-level researchers affiliated with a nonprofit institution one year of support at up to $120,000. The two-year fellowships provide $125,000 in total funding to postdoctoral (or equivalent) investigators who have limited experience and are sponsored by a seasoned investigator.
If either of these awards could suit you, send a letter of intent in response to the new Targeted RFP for Rectal HIV Transmission by August 1. Go to the Grants page for application requirements and other areas of interest.
For more information, contact:
amfAR
Grants Management Department
120 Wall St., 13th Floor
New York, NY 10005-3908 USA
Fax: 212/806-1696
email: grants@amfar.org
Learn About the Health Role of Sex and Gender Online
You can learn about the impact of sex and gender on research, policy, and health care through a new online course from NIH's Office of Research on Women's Health and FDA's Office of Women's Health.
Called The Science of Sex and Gender in Human Health, the free, self-paced class covers topics such as developmental biology, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, and clinical applications of genomics.
For more information, read the June 5, 2006, Press Release. You fill out the Registration to sign up and to receive continuing education credit after completing the course.
Mail Box Failure -- Ouch!
Our sincerest apologies. It took a few weeks for us to realize that we have not been receiving email messages sent to the address previously listed in our email newsletter.
If you wrote us and we did not respond, please send your question again. While we are resolving this problem, write us directly by mailing deaweb@niaid.nih.gov.
If your question is specific to your grant, for example, its funding status, call the grants management specialist listed on your Notice of Grant Award for business questions, and ask your program officer about funding and science issues.
For more on information about help and roles, see the NIAID Staff Roles and Finding Help questions and answers as well as When to Contact an NIAID Program Officer.
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Advice Corner |
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Don't Be Confused by Terms You See in the eRA Commons
When you log in to the eRA Commons, you will see terms that have meanings in that context only. This may be confusing since institutes and investigators may use the same words with different meanings.
If your application receives a score beyond the payline, you may see the designation "pending." Unless an application is funded or withdrawn, Commons lists it as pending for administrative purposes until the end of the fiscal year it was submitted.
This use of "pending" (there are other circumstances too, such as pending Council) does NOT necessarily mean an application has a chance of being funded. NIAID pays some grants beyond the payline at the end of a fiscal year but will not likely fund any that 1) have scores well beyond the payline or 2) are unscored.
If either of those two scenarios apply to you, always call your program officer for advice, and read If my application is not within the payline, may it still get funded? For more information on paylines, see Paylines and Budget.
"Expedited" is another term that causes problems. Ignore it -- it just means your application is for a small business award or AIDS research. It does not mean that your application is being expedited for funding.
Call the Commons Help Desk if you see any other terms you don't understand.
Reader Questions Why Is There No Application Package In Grants.gov?
Willy Valdivia-Granda, CEO of Orion Integrated Biosciences, Inc., asks:
"For the Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research solicitation, I get a message in Grants.gov 'The application package for Funding Opportunity Number PA-04-119 has not been posted by the awarding agency.' Where's the right link?"
The R01 and P01 mechanisms have not switched to electronic application, so there is no electronic package for PA-04-119; you must use the PHS 398 paper application instead. Grants.gov uses that generic error message any time it can't find an application package, even if there's not supposed to be one.
After NIH issued the R21 Parent Announcement, NIAID eliminated many R21 announcements. We removed the R21 mechanism from this PA in a March 7, 2006, Amendment.
If you had hoped to apply for an R21, you should instead send your application through the R21 Parent Announcement in Grants.gov. Download the electronic application package.
For a simple way of figuring out what to do, use our NIH Funding Opportunities Relevant to NIAID. If you scroll down to NIH PA-04-119, Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research Opportunities, you will find links and instructions that will point you in the right direction no matter which mechanism you want.
Do Percentile Calculations Include Unscored Applications?
James I. Mullins, Ph.D., professor, University of Washington School of Medicine asks:
"Is the denominator for calculating percentile all applications reviewed by the study section or all scored applications?"
NIH has always included the unscored applications when calculating percentiles by treating them as if they had received a priority score of 501.
Since the number of unscored applications varies by study section, including them affects the percentile distribution and makes percentiling fair across study sections. For more information, see How Percentiles Are Determined.
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