Happy Stem Cell Day! It is a tumultuous time for the stem cell and regenerative medicine fields, but despite this there are concrete reasons for optimism on this Stem Cell Awareness Day. I’ve listed my top 10 below. What else gives you a sense of optimism? You can also check out CIRM’s nifty stem cell awareness day page too, from which I borrowed the below image. More trials = road to progress. There are more real, robust clinical trials than ever and they are …Read More
NIH funding
Some stuff on my mind for our TGIF Science this week. Research Funding Ups: NIH. Is it my imagination or is NIH funding slightly improving? This is the overall vibe I’m hearing from the trenches. Research Funding Ups and Downs: CIRM. CIRM funded some basic research to the tune of a total of $4 million, which is great. On a personal level, just wish my “great idea” had fared better in review there. Kind of a downer, but after a while you get a …Read More
If you work in academia and on grants, hen you might have been getting that grant Möbius strip, hamster wheel, Groundhog Day kind of feeling… The funding rate for the key so-called “R01” NIH laboratory biomedical grant has never been lower. In the long run, R01s are crucial to the everyday running of most biomedical labs in America. (Update: I highly recommend you check out this grantsmanship website for useful, practical information.) It might take 10-15 tries to get one grant if one assumes all …Read More
Is the new multi-billion dollar NIH Brain Initiative a stroke of madness or genius? For some non-brain researchers scrambling for funding from NIH, it could well just give them a stroke. At the same time as the NIH and Obama are asking for $4.5 billion (yes, with a b) for the new “big science” Brain Initiative, most biomedical scientists are feeling like it is almost impossible to get a new core NIH R01 grant. What’s an R01? It is the type of grant that usually …Read More