NIA Summer Institute

1. NIA Summer Institute Dr. Ramesh Vemuri Chief, Scientific Review Branch National Institute on Aging National Institutes of Health July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

2. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • 3 rounds per year • Unsolicited or solicited applications • Assigned to an Institute for primary funding • Many types of grants • Research Project • Centers • Contracts • Training • Other • Assigned to CSR or an Institute for Review July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

3. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • Standing committees or ad-hoc committees • CSR: 177 standing • Institutes: 67 standing • 25 Special Emphasis Panels across NIH (but each represents multiple meetings) July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

4. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • Expertise in one or more areas of biomedical research • Conducts an administrative review of applications • Recruits reviewers with appropriate expertise • Determines reviewer assignments • Manages conflicts of interest • Serves as the Designated Federal Official for reviews • Writes the Summary Statement for the review meeting July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

5. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • Expertise • Stature in field • Mature judgment • Impartiality • Managed conflicts of interest • Balanced representation: • Gender • Geography • Diversity • Seniority July 121, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

6. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • SRO orients reviewers to the process, as needed • Reviewers provide: • Signed conflict of interest form • Preliminary scores for 5 criteria and overall impact • Written critiques for 5 criteria, overall, and other July 11, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

7. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • Meeting types: • Face-to-face (preferred by reviewers) • Site visits • Teleconference (easier to recruit for) • Asynchronous review • Meeting agenda: produce a scientific merit score • Assigned reviewer critiques/scores address criteria • Panel discussion • Score range, consensus or not • VA Peer Review Working Group, July 25

8. Overview of the Peer Review Process at NIH Center for Scientific Review Receipt and Referral Scientific Review Officer Reviewer Recruitment Meeting Preparation Meeting Meeting Report Institutes • Summary statement: official record of the review of an application • Resume and summary of discussion: by SRO and chairperson • Edited critiques of the assigned reviewers (where needed) • Referred to for resubmissions and appeals • VA Peer Review Working Group, July 25

9. Career Development Applications • Overall Impact • Candidate • Career Development Plan. • Research Plan. • Mentor(s), Consultant(s), Collaborator(s) • Environment and Institutional Commitment to the Candidate July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

10. Career Development Applications • Research Strategy: • Must be original and well conceived – Check databases such as Medline and NIH RePORTER. • Do not copy mentor’s research plans. • If new techniques are to be learned, state from whom and where and how you will learn them. • Time table is very important, be realistic and plan • well, estimate of start/end times for each experiment. • Nobody expects you to solve all the problems or answer all the questions. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

11. Career Development Applications • Mentor and Collaborators: • Select a mentor based on the training you need. • Add co-mentors or collaborators as needed. • State clearly what you know and what you propose to learn from each one. • It is preferable that you select someone other than your postdoc mentor. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

12. Career Development Applications: Overall Impact • Dr. A is an outstanding candidate and appears to be highly committed to an academic career in patient-oriented research. • The candidate has an impressive track record of productivity and has received multiple honors and awards. The career development plan is now much better developed and designed. • The commitment of the institution to the candidate is now clear and well documented; in particular this is due to the appointment of the applicant to tenure track faculty. • The training plan includes a large overlap with an ongoing training program and the research plan lacks focus and testable hypotheses. • There is limited evidence of the candidate’s skills in gathering or analyzing data The candidate lacks preparatory training that would enable him to take full advantage of the career and research plan. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

13. Career Development Applications • CANDIDATE: • An outstanding candidate that is likely to gain from this experience and develop to a leadership position as a translational clinician. • Dr. C is a well-trained candidate, with expertise in the field of lipid chemistry, with animal models of inflammatory disorders, and oxidative stress. Dr. D shows a strong commitment to the field of aging and presents his findings in various scientific venues in form of posters and oral presentation. Many of these presentations are at aging meetings. • Have published 25 papers, 15 as first author papers in relevant area. • Dr. X does not appear to have had prior training in aging, and although the proposed work and training will involve older adults, it is not entirely clear that aging in particular is a primary focus of the candidate. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

14. Career Development Applications • CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLAN: • Motivated to be leader in the field of aging: The long-term career goal of the candidate is to establish himself as a successful, productive, well-funded, independent investigator through sustained basic and translational research in the field of aging, in particular, in the area of muscle biology. Moreover, he is taking the appropriate steps to achieve this goal. • A plan is in place to provide scientific guidance and direction as well as advice on how to manage a laboratory and the opportunity to gain practical experience. Will attend several 2-week courses on specialized topics such as yeast genetics and genomics, stem cells and neural stem cell. • It is not clear what courses or training the candidate is planning for the duration of this award. Moreover, the candidate has been in the same lab for more than eight years and if hasn’t received the training during the years the chance he will learn anything new is remote. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

15. Career Development Applications • RESEARCH PLAN: • Overall there is a general hypothesis-driven research. Appropriate approaches including a combination of in vitro and in vivo studies. Well-designed, logical specific aims. • Novelty in investigating mechanism that is relevant for the inflammatory phenotype of humans aging and frailty. • A relatively unique and impressive set of reagents, animal and cell models, and techniques are available to facilitate the proposed studies. • Specific Aims page lacks depth and needs development. Background does not provide enough depth regarding the field. • Much of the material in the Preliminary Studies section belongs in the Background section. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

16. Career Development Applications • Mentor(s), Consultant(s), Collaborator(s): • The quality and commitment of the primary mentor and the 3 co-mentors are outstanding. In particular, Dr. Q, has a highly appropriate and skilled background as a Geriatrician with clinical, basic and translational expertise. • Great mentors.Mentorship that expands basic science to clinical science. • Strong support for statistical development. Strong letters of reference • The long distance between the applicant and a major mentor is a concern. The application should specify the steps that will be taken to minimize the potential problems created by this interaction Neither senior mentor appears to have active NIH funding. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

17. Career Development Applications • Environment, Institutional Commitment: • There is dedicated space to perform the proposed experiments and the facilities exists within the mentor’s lab for the to be performed successfully. The letter from the dean attests to the release time and elevation to full faculty position and is not contingent upon this award. • The candidate has access to the patient database and the institute has offered additional help with recruitment of new patients through outreach program. • The lab space is a shared space with several other post-docs, the letter of commitment is missing, and it appears that without this grant the support by the mentor runs out in six months. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

18. R01 by New Investigator • Resume and Summary of Discussion: • The project focuses on an important discovery by the investigator that stimulates new and exciting work by the research community in general is a major finding that will have a stunning impact on the ----- field, with profound implications for several diseases. The proposed studies are well planned. The relatively junior investigator (ESI) is exceptionally trained with outstanding record of productivity and the reviewers evaluated the application with a mixture of excitement and awe.”………………. • The impact of the project is likely to be low due to problems with significance, investigators, innovation, approach, and environment. Some of the literature used to support the rationale and procedures of the study is inaccurately described. Pilot data are inadequate to establish proof of concept, demonstrate feasibility, and appropriately power study aims. The investigative team lacks expertise and details of the environment are missing. July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute

19. QUESTIONS??? July 12, 2012 NIA Summer Institute