REPOST: Structure Of An R01: Background and Significance

Reposted upon request of a dear friend of the blog.
In our first installment of a series on structuring an NIH R01 research grant application, we discussed in detail the first section: the Specific Aims. The Specific Aims page encapsulates the entire gist of the grant in one page, and if that is all a reviewer reads, they should feel all excited and jazzed about what you propose, or your grant is doomed.
In this post, we discuss the next section following the Specific Aims, the Background and Significance. The Background and Significance is designed to set the context for the proposed studies in terms of what is already known in the area of proposed inquiry, what key open question(s) are important, why they are important, and how the approach(es) of the proposed studies are highly suited to addressing the open question(s).

REPOST: Structure Of An R01: Specific Aims

Reposted by request of a dear friend of the blog.
One of the most important skills a PI in the biomedical sciences must master is writing grant applications. As we allude to constantly, the basic grant award that is the sine qua non of a successful self-sustaining research program is the NIH R01. The R01 is generally awarded for 4 or 5 years, with an annual direct budget of ~$250,000. This is sufficient to support a small research program of about four or five people, including the PI.
In this series, we will discuss how to structure the Research Plan of a new R01 application (competitive renewals are a different beast), taking each section in turn: Specific Aims, Background and Significance, Preliminary Studies, and Research Design and Methods. (Note: NIH has asserted that in the near future, the R01 applications will be reduced in length from 25 single-spaced pages to 12. It remains to be seen how applicants and study sections will adjust their expectations to this new length.)
We start with the Specific Aims.

PIs are a buncha sell-outs, man!

In her inimitable style Ms.PhD of Young Female Scientist threw down some smack in a post entitled The Brainwashing of American Postdocs:

Among other things, I’m interested in why, when postdocs become PIs, they suddenly switch from “The system is flawed” to “The system is fine.”

and in case you didn’t quite grasp the point:

The logic goes:
The system is broken –> but the system likes me –> therefore, the system is not broken, because I refuse to admit I got my job based on knowing people and not on my scientific qualifications alone.

What a crock!

Restoring Science to Its Rightful Place: The UK Drugs Edition

The latest round of scientists being informed, rudely, that the political process does not march in lockstep with scientific analysis or information hails from the U.K. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was first established under the Misuse of Drugs Act (1971). Under this Act drugs are to be classified as A, B or C category for harm with “A” being the most harmful category. MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, “Ecstasy”) is in the most harmful category.

The unfortunately named David Nutt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychopharmacology, Univ. of Bristol and current chair of the Advisory Council, believes that MDMA should be downgraded to a lesser harm category. He has issued opinion pieces comparing MDMA’s propensity for causing harm favorably with alcohol and waxed enthusiastic about the current clinical trials. This was all well and good but what really got him into trouble was his attempt at the absurdist ploy.