The Southern California Research Center for ALPD and Cirrhosis hosted its 10th annual symposium on December 5, 2008.  This whole day symposium marked the center’s 10th year anniversary since its inception in 1999 and also celebrated the second successful competitive renewal of the NIH/NIAAA P50 center grant totaling $8.1M for 5 years from January 1st, 2009.

Dr Li Zhang, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics in the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in a ceremony at the White House on December 19, 2008. The Presidential Award is the highest honor bestowed by the US government and is intended to recognize and nurture scientists and engineers who, while early in their research careers, show exceptional leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge during the 21st century.

Dr Zhang was honored for his innovative research on the structure and function of neural circuitry in the auditory cortex. He is the first NIH-supported scientist from USC selected for this award. Full story»

As calendar year 2009 begins, the massive grant review system at NIH will be undergoing conceptual and operational changes. The goal of the changes is to fund research that advances the most important biomedical research while attempting to minimize the inherently conservative and bureaucratic aspects of such a group process. Assuring the entry of more early stage investigators into the community of funded NIH grantees is also a goal. The scope of the changes was announced in September 2008, but detailed guidance and firm implementation dates were not in place at that time. Further details have now been posted. Key items include:

Enhancing the Peer Review Process, including resubmission applications, new review criteria, and new scoring procedures.  For a summary timeline of these, and other anticipated changes in the future, click here.

Revised New and Early Stage Investigator Policies.  This includes requesting an extension of the ESI period.  All junior faculty should review these procedures and make appropriate changes to their NIH commons accounts.

The upcoming Zumberge Multi-School Interdisciplinary competition has a due date of February 25 for large $50k proposals. In recent rounds, faculty who are in the best position to receive an award have often chosen not to apply for funds. Many teams are in the process of developing proposals for DOE, NSF and NIH centers, yet very few of these teams apply for a large Zumberge interdisciplinary grant.

Many proposals have been rejected because they have no specific target for external funding, they lack experienced research leadership, or they are not truly interdisciplinary. The mismatch between applications and program requirements has led to a large rejection rate (about 85%).

For the upcoming round, PIs with interdisciplinary center level proposals are encouraged to apply for funding. Please ensure that your proposal has a clear plan by which Zumberge funding can be leveraged into significant external funding.

Application forms can be downloaded at the Zumberge program website.

This unique course will deal with successfully commercializing any type of research activity, whether focused on engineering, physical sciences or life-sciences. The course will discuss the practical business and legal issues that researchers need to understand to commercialize their research. It will deal with the different ways to commercialize research, ranging from the traditional (i.e., employment and licensing) to the more entrepreneurial (i.e., consulting, joint venturing/strategic alliance and startup company). The course will show how these commercialization methods overlap and how they differ. Fundamental topics like intellectual property, licensing agreements, employment agreements and consulting agreements, which researchers must understand regardless of whether they intend to be researchers at a university lab or the founder of the next great public company, will also be addressed.

This is an 11-part weekly lecture series, beginning on Wednesday January 14, at 10-11.30am PST. Click here to register.