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The new NIH R01 grant format

January 12, 2012

The NIH has thrown a lot of us into disarray over the new, shorter R01 grant format.

I’m hearing reports of scores that are wildly variable and all over the map. I’ve also had quite a few questions from people about how to deal with the new format.

The theory behind the new format is that by shortening it re-labelling the sections, writers would be forced to focus less on minutiae of their experiments, and more on the “big ...(read more)

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The witch and the sarcophogus

January 11, 2012

Last night I gave a webinar on grant writing, where I told a story of a grant. It was a story of both failure and successes, showing what things worked and what things didn’t. It was meant to be an instructional story, as many good stories are. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize that people learn far better through story than through pedantic spewing of facts.

So. A lot of people wrote to me afterwards ...(read more)

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The grant game has changed – how to adapt in 2012

January 3, 2012

It would be hard not to notice that things are changing in the world of grants. Funding rates are at an all-time low (< 1 in 6 according to NIH data). People are demoralized. I talk to them everyday, and it can be painful at times.

I have some good ideas about why things are changing and what to do about it. Instead of trying to write this up in a (very long) blog post, I’ve decided to put together ...(read more)

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Facts don’t win, passion does!

December 22, 2011

At the risk of giving you the impression that Idaho is full of backwoods uneducated types, I’m going to mention a recent article about the “vaccination debate” here in Idaho.

The article tells the story of a group of anti-immunization crusaders in Northern Idaho through the lens of two contrasting women. One of these is the leader of the anti-immunization folks, Ingri Cassel. The other is state epidemiologist Christine Hahn.

I’m not going to wade into the depths of the ...(read more)

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Discovering Love in a great talk

November 23, 2011

A few years ago I gave a talk in the biochem department at UNC. Afterwards I went out for lunch with my mentor, and he berated me. (Did I mention that he can be an intimidating guy? But I listen to him, since he’s the one who helped me go from no grants to lots of grants…)

He berated me for several things, including using a difficult-to-read font, giving a software demo that took a bunch of time to get ...(read more)

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