(l to r) Drs. Gamble, Cropsey, Chaplin at the CCTS Annual NIH Study SectionWhat does it take to move an NIH K01 grant through submission and resubmission to finally achieve the coveted “NOGA” (Notice of Grant Award)? Nearly 60 attendees gathered at our annual Mock NIH Study Section Review last week to find out. A real-world K01 grant that initially received a non-fundable impact score of 30, which improved to a fundable score of 12 after the investigator worked with CCTS, served as the focus of the review.
Attendees, including 32 participating virtually from five CCTS Partners (Auburn, PRBC, UA, UAB, and USA), learned about the different sections of an K01 grant and how they are scored for scientific and technical merit. Panelists explained their mock scores regarding the overall impact grant and its strengths and weaknesses for review criteria, including significance, investigators, innovation, approach, and environment. They also discussed important considerations for human subject protections; inclusion of women, minorities, and children; resource sharing plans; and budget. The panelists also described the need to address NIH’s rigor, reproducibility, and transparency requirements, which apply to nearly all NIH grant applications.
Panelists stepped out of their roles to address several areas that can weaken an K01 grant: whether the number of subjects chosen is high enough to produce meaningful results and support a well-conceived power calculation; not providing a clear description of appropriate statistical analyses that will be performed; and failing to thoroughly address human subjects protection. Dr. Chaplin encouraged attendees to reach out to the CCTS for help in appropriately addressing these areas, noting K01 applicants who receive a CCTS panel prior to submission "greatly strengthen their grants and increase their chance of funding as much as three times the NIH baseline."
CCTS is grateful to this year’s panelists including Dr. Karen Cropsey, Associate Professor, UAB Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, Dr. Karen Gamble, Assistant Professor, UAB Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, and CCTS Training Academy CoDirector Dr. David Chaplin, Professor, UAB Microbiology. A special thank you to Dr. Ceren Yarar-Fisher, whose K01 grant, “Targeting Skeletal Muscle to Improve Metabolic Health in Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury,” served as the before and after model in the mock review.
The Mock NIH Study Section Review traditionally marks the end of our Clinical and Translational Science Training Program (CTSTP). From January to June, our 2018 CTSTP trainees received more than 50 hours of didactic instruction in research project development, ethics, clinical trials, epidemiology, biostatistics. They gained exposure to many types of clinical and translational research, including health services, genomics/informatics, behavioral, and community-based participatory research. The Mock NIH Study Section Review is a highlight for many trainees, especially those who plan to pursue a career in research.
Interested in becoming a CTSTP trainee? Email your interest and/or questions to