Background Image
Table of Contents Table of Contents
Previous Page  10 / 16 Next Page
Information
Show Menu
Previous Page 10 / 16 Next Page
Page Background

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

10

MARCH

2015

NIGMS Director Lorsch on

Developing a More

Productive, Efficient and

Sustainable Biomedical

Research Enterprise

The Public Affairs Committee was pleased to host

Jon Lorsch

, Director of the National Institute for

General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of

Health (NIGSM, NIH), as a guest speaker at the

Meeting. Lorsch, who has been director of the

Institute since 2013, focused his talk on a new

pilot program the Institute has launched, which

he hopes will become a new model for funding

research at NIH.

The purpose of the new program, “Maximizing

Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA),” is to fund

labs rather than individual projects. In exchange

for more flexibility, longer support periods (five

years), and less time writing grant proposals than

R01 grants allow, principal investigators agree that

if awarded a MIRA, it will be their only NIGMS

grant. Lorsch hopes that a side benefit to the

Institute and the research community is that the

program will free up valuable dollars currently

going to a small number of labs for wider distribu-

tion, increasing the pure number of investigators

funded. MIRA grants will be capped at $750,000

per year. Lorsch would like the community to

start talking about how many researchers NIH

funds, rather than grants, as a metric.

In order to keep the size of the pilot program

manageable, the first RFA allows only investigators

currently holding two or more NIGMS grants or

one grant of more than $400,000 to apply. This

RFA can be found at

http://1.usa.gov/17TlcPQ.

A second RFA is under development that will be

open to early career investigators.

As part of his presentation, Lorsch presented data

illustrating how NIGMS funds are currently (and

historically) distributed, productivity per principle

investigator based on funding levels, and several

other illuminating charts. Lorsch was generous

enough to provide these slides for individuals to

view after the meeting. They can be viewed on the

BPS website at

http://bit.ly/bpslorsch.

Biophysical Society TV

The Society is pleased to provide Biophysical

Society TV as a means for individuals to hear

directly from some of the meeting presenters, the

Society leadership, and meeting attendees. The

short videos provide another opportunity for the

biophysics community to stay up-to-date on

interesting research findings and learn more about

the Society’s programs. The videos are freely

available at

www.biophysics.org/2015meeting.

High School Students

Visit BPS 2015

Students from Baltimore's ConneXions Com-

munity Leadership Academy toured the Exhibit

Hall in small groups with BPS members

Candice

Etson

,

Ryan Hoffman

,

Virginia Smith

, and

Liskin

Swint-Kruse

. The goal of their visit was to have

fun socializing with professional scientists, helping

to overcome one of the social barriers towards a

career in science. The groups enjoyed the Biomo-

lecular Discovery Dome, learned about new tech-

nologies from exhibitors, viewed the submissions

for the Art of Science competition, and heard

poster presentations.

When the afternoon was over, the students were

excited about the range of activities that scientists

enjoy, from making art to developing technology.

They returned to their school with new insights

into the social world of science, along with some

new vocabulary and sore feet.