NIH
NIGMS Advisory Council Approves New Grant Mechanism, Discusses Reproducibility
At the September meeting of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Advisory Council, director Jon Lorsch provided an update on a number of issues, including the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) data reproducibility efforts, the NIGMS strategic planning process, and an overview of the impacts of the previous NIH budget-doubling period “on the biomedical research ecosystem.” In addition, the Council approved the Institute’s concept clearance to create the new Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA), clearing the way for NIGMS to proceed. Reproducibility Lorsch noted that reproducibility is not a single issue but an issue of reproducibility of data,…
NIH Center for Scientific Review to Host Peer Review Webinars for New Grant Applicants
In early November, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Review (CSR) plans to host four Meet the Experts in NIH Peer Review webinars designed to provide new NIH grant applicants and other interested individuals with valuable insights into the submission and review processes. CSR is NIH’s gateway for grant applications and their review for scientific merit. It organizes the peer review groups, or study sections, that evaluate the majority of the research grant applications sent to the agency. The webinars will address the various types of grant mechanisms supported by NIH: Academic Research Enhancement Awards (R15), Fellowship…
Psychosocial and Behavioral Aspects of Bariatric Surgery
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) is seeking applications designed to measure psychosocial and behavioral variables in individuals undergoing bariatric surgery to understand how they predict success and risk and examine mechanisms of behavior change. The funding opportunity announcement, Psychosocial and Behavioral Aspects of Bariatric Surgery (RFA-DK-14-026), responds to the dramatic increase in the number of bariatric surgeries performed in the U.S. over the last decade, including those performed on adolescents.
House Appropriations Committee Democrats Introduce FY 2015 Labor, HHS, and Education Bill
On September 15, the Democratic members of the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Appropriations Subcommittee (Labor-HHS), led by Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), introduced their version of a fiscal year (FY) 2015 funding bill for the programs within the Subcommittee’s jurisdiction. The Labor-HHS bill is the only appropriations bill that has yet to be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee. Thus far, the Subcommittee’s Republican majority has given no indication that it intends to introduce a Labor-HHS bill this year. This is the second consecutive year and third year out of the last four that the Subcommittee…
House Subcommittee Discusses Suicide Prevention and Treatment
On September 18, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing, “Suicide Prevention and Treatment: Helping Loved Ones in Mental Health Crisis.” Subcommittee Chairman Tim Murphy (R-PA), a psychologist, explained that the hearing was an attempt to “take the conversation about suicide out of the dark shadow of stigma and into the bright light of truth and hope. Suicide is the deadly outcome of mental illness. Suicide is when depression kills. Suicide is an epidemic and its impact is staggering.”
NIH Issues Final Genomic Data Sharing Policy
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued its final NIH Genomic Data Sharing (GDS) policy designed to promote data sharing as a way to accelerate the translation of data into knowledge, products, and procedures that improve health but also protect the privacy of research participants.
NIH Seeks Input on Resources for Data-Related Standards Used in Biomedical Science
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued a Request for Information (RFI): Input on Information Resources for Data-Related Standards Widely Used in Biomedical Science, seeking comments and ideas to inform the consideration of an NIH Standards Information Resource (NSIR) that would collect, organize, and make available to the public trusted, systematically organized, and curated information about data-related standards.
Social Scientists among 2014 Golden Goose Awardees
On September 18, the scientific community and policy makers will come together to celebrate the winners of this year’s Golden Goose Award at a ceremony in Washington, DC. The Golden Goose Award honors scientists whose research funded by the federal government has yielded major benefits to society, which could not have been anticipated at the time of funding. Among the 2014 awardees is a group of scientists whose research studying the impact of maternal absence on infant rats has significantly improved the ability of premature babies to thrive and has saved billions in health care costs and a group of…
Notable NIH Funding Opportunities
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued three notable funding opportunities: Obesity and Asthma: Awareness and Self-Management (R01) Serious STEM Games for Pre-College and Informal Science Education (R41/R42) Training Modules to Enhance Data Reproducibility (R25) Back to this issue’s table of contents.
NINR Seeks Grant Applications Addressing Obesity and Asthma: Awareness and Self-Management
The prevalence of asthma and obesity has risen significantly over the past several decades. Both conditions are considered inflammatory conditions. In 2012, the prevalence of asthma in the U.S. was 8.2 percent, affecting 25.5 million people. This large asthma burden and the continued adverse outcomes is an ongoing public health challenge, including the effort to enhance uptake of underutilized management strategies to control symptoms. At the same time, 34 percent of the adult population 20 years and older living in the U.S. are considered obese. Healthy People 2010 identified overweight and obesity as one of 10 leading health indicators and…
NIH Seeks SBIR Applications for “Serious STEM Games for Pre-College and Informal Science Education Audiences”
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recognizes that serious games function as a bridge technology that converts gaming from a social pastime to a powerful educational tool that challenges students with game-based problem solving, conceptual reasoning, and goal-oriented decisions. The agency further highlights that well-designed educational games imitate successful teacher pedagogy and exploit student interest in gaming. Such games integrate imbedded learning and provide real time student assessment. Accordingly, the NIH has released a funding opportunity announcement (FOA), Serious STEM Games for Pre-College and Informal Science Education (PAR-14-325), to provide opportunities for eligible small business concerns (SBCs) to submit Small…
NIH Seeks Applications for Training Modules Designed to Enhance Data Reproducibility
Responding to several studies that have shown that a substantial amount of basic and preclinical research results cannot be reproduced by other laboratories under the conditions described in publications, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking applications for creative educational activities that have a primary focus of developing courses for skills development, specifically training modules for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and beginning investigators designed to enhance data reproducibility.
Analysis of FY 2015 Senate Labor-HHS Bill
In late July, the Senate Appropriations Committee released the text of its fiscal year (FY) 2015 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill. This is the annual spending bill that provides funding to the National Institutes of Health and other HHS agencies, the Department of Education, and the Department of Labor, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As previously reported, the bill was approved by the Labor-HHS Subcommittee in June, but action has since stalled. It is unclear if or when the full Senate Appropriations Committee will take up the bill. COSSA’s full analysis of…
NIH Seeks Next Director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking applications for the position of director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). The OBSSR director provides advice and staff support to the NIH Director and the director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives Associate (DPCPSI). A dual reporting position, the OBSSR director also functions as the NIH Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, serving in a trans-NIH capacity as the NIH focal point for establishing agency-wide policies and goals in behavioral and social sciences research, including coordinating the activities undertaken in the performance of…
NIH Seeks Next Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is searching for the next director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. The director provides leadership and direction to the Institute and advises the NIH Director and institute and center (IC) directors on the development of NIH-wide policy issues related to minority health disparities research, research on other health disparities, and related research training and serves as principal liaison with other agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services and federal government.
The CTSA Program at NIH: The NCATS Advisory Council Working Group Response to the IOM Report
Earlier this summer, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Working Group on the IOM (Institute of Medicine) released its report, The CTSA [Clinical and Translational Science Awards] Program at NIH. The report is the Working Group’s response to the recommendations in an IOM report regarding the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) CTSA Program. The response included the Working Group’s acknowledgement that the CTSA program is key to the goal of “accelerating the process of transforming discovery into application and to increase the rate of adoption.” The CTSA program supports a national consortium of medical research institutes working together…
NIH: Enhancing Cross-National Research within the HRS Family of Studies
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released a Funding Opportunity Announcement, Enhancing Cross-National Research within the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Family of Studies(RFA-AG-15-015), designed to enhance the comparability among the NIA-supported HRS and the family of comparable longitudinal aging studies around the world to support cross-national behavioral and social science research in aging in high priority areas.
NIH: IDeA Program Infrastructure for Clinical Translational Research
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program in 1993 to enhance biomedical research in states that have had historically low NIH grant funding success rates. The program currently supports competitive research in 23 states and Puerto Rico through the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) and IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) initiatives.
COSSA Analysis of FY 2015 Senate Labor-HHS Bill
On July 24, the Senate Appropriations Committee released bill language and the accompanying Committee report for the fiscal year (FY) 2015 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) Appropriations bill. The Labor-HHS Subcommittee approved the bill via voice vote in June (see Update, June 12, 2014). It is still unclear when or if the measure will be considered by the full Senate Appropriations Committee. Instead, it is all but certain that Congress will enact a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to allow time to complete the FY 2015 appropriations process after the November elections. You can read…
NIGMS Request for Information: Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award
The National Institute of General Medical Science (NIGMS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently issued a time-sensitive Request for Information (RFI) for input to assist in its planning for a potential new program tentatively called the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA). According to NIGMS, MIRA is intended to be a grant in support of all of the research supported by the institute in an investigator’s laboratory. The Institute is planning to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement to test the new program on a pilot scale. Accordingly, it is seeking feedback from the scientific community.