The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is making a number of updates to training grant applications for due dates on or after January 25, 2025. For details, visit the Updates to NIH Institutional Training Grant Applications webpage. New funding announcements and application instructions for undergraduate (T34) training programs will be released in the coming months. 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is making a number of changes to the training application and peer review process for due dates on or after January 25, 2025. For details, visit the Updates to NIH Institutional Training Grant Applications webpage. NIH will release a new parent T32 funding announcement and application instructions this fall for postdoctoral training programs to use. 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is making a number of changes to predoctoral training grant applications for due dates on or after January 25, 2025. For details, visit the Updates to NIH Institutional Training Grant Applications webpage.

Dr. Mercedes Rubio. Credit: NIGMS.

I’m pleased to announce that Mercedes Rubio has been selected as the new director of our Division for Research Capacity Building. Mercedes is a medical sociologist by training and is currently chief of the Predoctoral Basic Biomedical and Medical Scientist Training Programs Branch in our Division of Training and Workforce Development. She also manages research training, scientific conference, and research on intervention grants and has been the program director for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Diversity Program Consortium’s National Research Mentoring Network.

The NIGMS Sandbox, a cloud-based learning platform that teaches students, researchers, and clinicians how to harness cloud technology for life sciences applications and research, has been featured in a special supplement of Briefings in Bioinformatics.

UPDATE: The video from this webinar is now available.

We’re pleased to announce that the notice of funding opportunity for the Tribal Institutional Review Board Establishment and Enhancement (TIRBEE) program has been published (PAR-24-260). TIRBEE supports federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Tribes, Tribal colleges and universities, Tribal health programs, or Tribal organizations to establish institutional review boards (IRBs) or enhance the capacity of existing Tribal IRBs. The program seeks to give Tribes greater autonomy over their own research processes and is part of the response to needs identified through a formal Tribal consultation [PDF] NIGMS conducted in 2021.

We've published the funding announcements for our new Tribal Undergraduate to Graduate Research Training and Leadership Experiences (TURTLE) program. TURTLE will support federally recognized American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) Tribes, Tribal Colleges or Universities, Tribal health programs, or Tribal organizations (collectively termed, eligible Tribal entities) to identify and develop a pool of scientists to conduct research on AI/AN health and health disparities.

Saad Bhamla, Ph.D. Credit: Rob Felt, Georgia Tech.

What does a children’s toy have to do with malaria diagnostics? How about a barbecue lighter and a nucleic acid vaccine? Find out from Saad Bhamla during our 2024 Judith H. Greenberg Early Career Investigator Lecture. The lecture, “Fast and Frugal: Cells That Move Without ATP and Life-Saving Tools That Cost Pennies,” will take place on October 7 at 1:00 p.m. ET.

UPDATE: This position is now closed.

We’re recruiting an accomplished scientist for a program director position in our Division of Training and Workforce Development (TWD). The successful applicant will be responsible for scientific and administrative management of a portfolio of research training and workforce development grants and will stimulate, plan, advise, direct, and evaluate program activities. The selectee will handle postdoctoral, early career, and workforce development programs.

In Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier [PDF], he wrote:

“A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowl­edge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill.”

This principle also applies to U.S. states and the academic institutions in them. When resources are limited, organizational leaders are often tempted to focus their research efforts on applied studies that could have short-term payoffs. It’s easy to understand this reasoning because there are often pressing health, social, and economic problems close at hand that are crying out for prompt action. However, economic studies, including a recent paper by Hans Gersbach and colleagues and a 2012 study by Andrew Toole, have indicated that basic research is essential to overall advancement, even on a local level.