Blogs

Funding 101: Multiple Perspectives on the NIH Grant Process

Thursday, May 13, 2021

12:00 Noon–1:30 PM (ET)

Chairs: Anika Dzierlenga and Danielle Carlin, NIEHS

The SOT Education and Career Development Committee (ECDC) is pleased to host the Annual Research Funding Insights Session. This unique session, chaired by members of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), provides participants with a robust overview of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding process, insights from successful early-stage and established investigators, and a Q&A panel with the speakers. Participants should register for this webinar online.

Understanding the NIH Grant Peer Review Process

Laura Thomas, PhD

Scientific Review Officer, NIH/NIEHS

Dr. Thomas received her NRSA-funded PhD from Duke University’s Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, with a certificate in cognitive neuroscience. She completed a four-year postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health, followed by a year as a Scientific Technical Writer for Dr. Nora Volkow at the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Dr. Thomas was then a Research Health Scientist at the VA Medical Center in Washington, DC. Wanting to get back to the Triangle and to return to the NIH, she took a position as a Scientific Review Officer in the Division of Extramural Research and Training at the NIEHS, where she helps plan, recruit for, and run NIH grant study sections.

Living the Academic Dream: One Scientist’s Perspective

Aishwarya Prakash, PhD

Associate Professor, University of South Alabama

Dr. Prakash is an Associate Professor at the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She began her independent research career in March 2016 after obtaining her PhD in cancer biology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in the laboratory of structural biology under the guidance of Dr. Gloria Borgstahl. She completed her postdoctoral research training under Dr. Sylvie Doublie, during which she studied DNA glycosylases, oxidized-lesion specific enzymes that catalyze the first step of Base Excision Repair (BER). Her independent laboratory focuses on performing fundamental studies on the biochemistry and structural biology of BER complexes formed in the mitochondria. More recently, her laboratory also has been involved with performing experiments to aid with the reclassification of variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in mismatch repair genes, whose loss of function leads to a hereditary cancer syndrome known as Lynch syndrome (LS). VUSs are challenging for patient medical management, as functional information regarding the variant is unavailable. Using functional assays to recharacterize VUSs as either pathogenic (higher risk for disease) or benign (not disease causing), the Prakash lab is involved with understanding environmental influences that put some LS families at a higher risk for cancer.

Making Grant Writing a Hobby

Lauren Aleksunes, PharmD, PhD, DABT

Professor, Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy

Dr. Lauren Aleksunes is a Professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her research aims to investigate mechanistic roles for transport proteins in target organ toxicities using innovative and translational approaches. In 2011, Dr. Aleksunes was selected as an Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) Awardee from NIEHS, which provided her laboratory their first R01 research grant. Since that time, her research team has been continuously funded by NIH. Dr. Aleksunes is trained as a Grant Writing Coach from the National Research Mentoring Network. She uses this training to run two grant writing groups focused on early-career scientists and will share her insights from this experience during this webinar.

We look forward to seeing you at this event!

ECDC Research Funding Leads:
Darryl Hood
Kimberly Hodge-Bell
Natalie Johnson
Michael McCabe