Applying for a K99

1. Applying for a K99 David Lodowski

2. K99/R00 provides 2 phases of support • 1st Phase: mentored support • 90,000/year for up to 2 years* with at least 1 year required**. • Salary, reagents insurance, etc. all come from this pool • 2nd Phase: transition to independent position • 249,000/year for 3 years* • 75% of your time must be devoted to research *At least one of the institutes gives funding for only 1 year mentored and 2 years independent support. **You can negotiate with PO to have this requirement removed if for instance it takes 2 years to get through review and funding of your award.

3. Eligibility • You must have less than 5 years post-doc experience at the time the grant is first submitted. • Ph.D. or M.D. or other equivalent doctoral degree • M.D. with clinical faculty appointment may be considered eligible • U.S. citizens/permanent residents as well as non-citizens • You must be a dependent researcher. • Cannot have been PI on a NIH research grant, obtained a NIH career development grant or any other grant with more than 100,000 in direct costs/year.

4. Things to consider • While K99/R00 provides 3 years of support at close to R01 funding levels it does not effect your new investigator status. • Which institute • Historical funding line (some rank all K99 applications from an entire year before making funding decisions) • Once you transition to an independent position • Funding is often a requirement for tenure • Renewal of funding may also be a requirement • Having K99 and getting a R01 may be counted as a “renewal” by P&T board

5. K99 awards by institute

6. Choosing a mentor • They should be Senior Faculty (tenured) • You really should be learning something new (apart from what you have been doing as a postdoc) • Technique • System • Etc…

7. Sections of the K99 grant Application • Follow the SF424 directions and the PA-11-197 directions • 1 specific aims page • 12 pages • Candidate information – 2 - 3 pages • Your Background – • Career Plan/Goals – this should be for an independent tenure track position • Career development and training • Research strategy 7- 8 pages – this comprises both K and R portions of the award (be specific when things are going to be done) • Innovation – 1 page • Significance – ½ page • Training in responsible conduct in research – ½ page • Mentor statement • Institutional Commitment

8. Additional considerations • Your reference letters are important (one should be from your thesis advisor) • Stress your independence, ability to work creatively, productivity • In addition to the letters of reference, additional letters from people that will assist in your mentored phase are useful. Head of your department or the department you will partner with would also be a good idea (see institutional commitment below) • Mentor statement – you will need to at least help in the writing of this • Institutional commitment — (and mentor statement) • Don’t recycle this and make sure that it agrees with the mentor statement. • State that space/office space will be provided (of course you will need to get the mentor or head of your department to agree) • State that your time will be guaranteed to work on the proposed projects (i.e. little to no teaching) • Training plan – spend some time on this!

9. Be prepared to Wait… • My experience: first submission 25 page application ~4 years ago received 155 (old scoring system) • Resubmission: received a score of 13 about 9 months after receiving the score from the initial application • I contacted the Program Officer inquiring as to if this was fundable and he replied that I would have to wait till the next round of applications were scored. The final funding decision was not made until 13 months after getting the score.