Until the official minutes of the September 22-23, 2005, meeting of the National Advisory General Medical Sciences Council (NAGMSC) are posted on this Web site, we are providing this summary of the major topics covered during the Council's open session on September 22.

 

 

The NAGMSC Minority Opportunities in Research (MORE) working group met for a 2-day meeting in August 2005. The group is co-chaired by Dr. Virginia A. Zakian, of Princeton University, and Dr. Valerie Petit Wilson, of Brown University. In addition to Dr. Zakian, the eleven-member group includes two other NAGMS Council members: Dr. Jeffrey Mason, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and Dr. Richard I. Morimoto, of Northwestern University. Dr. Zakian described the group’s charge to evaluate individual MORE programs, as well as to think more broadly about ways to increase the number of under-represented minorities in the biomedical research community. Dr. Zakian reported that the group’s discussions have been broad, unrestricted, and thought-provoking. She and Dr. Wilson are currently preparing a report that will be presented to the full Council in January 2006 summarizing the opinions and suggestions of the working group.

 

Contact: Dr. Viriginia A. Zakian, vzakian@Princeton.edu , (609) 258-6770

 

 

Dr. John Norvell presented a summary of a June 2005 NIGMS workshop focused on the Institute’s research training programs. Dr. Paula Flicker headed an NIGMS staff committee that organized the workshop, which was attended by 17 scientists with knowledge of the research fields spanned by NIGMS predoctoral training programs. The workshop was chaired by Dr. John Nilson, of Washington State University, and included scientists involved with NIGMS training grants and NIGMS training review committees. Workshop participants discussed the design and goals of NIGMS training programs, as well as national needs for research training in the basic biomedical sciences. Dr. Norvell presented to the Council a workshop summary, including recommendations, as well as NIGMS staff plans and responses. 

 

Contact: Dr. John Norvell, norvellj@nigms.nih.gov , (301) 594-0533

 

 

NIH has included tuition as an allowable cost on research training grants since the inception of the agency’s training programs in the mid-1970s. In 1995, NIH convened a task force to consider the impact of tuition increases on training programs. At that time, NIH changed its policy and limited the tuition allowance using a formula-based approach that paid approximately 60 percent of actual tuition costs. At present, with rapidly rising tuition costs and level training budgets, NIH is now in a similar position, and significant reductions in NIH training programs are projected for future years. In June 2005, NIH issued a notice announcing a freeze on tuition allowance budgets for FY06 and the establishment of a new tuition allowance policy for FY07. Dr. John Norvell and Dr. Warren Jones reviewed the recent tuition changes and discussed plans for establishing a revised policy.  

 

Contacts: Dr. John Norvell, norvellj@nigms.nih.gov , (301) 594-0533; Dr. Warren Jones jonesw@nigms.nih.gov , (301) 594-3827

 

 

In recent years, numerous reports from NIH and the National Academies of Science have concluded that researchers will need to integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives, methodologies, and levels of analysis in order to advance our understanding of health and disease. The need for integration between traditional fields in the behavioral and biological sciences came out repeatedly in discussions of the working group on basic behavioral and social sciences of the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH. Dr. Jeremy M. Berg described progress towards the development of an interdisciplinary training program directed toward this interface that would be a powerful mechanism for strengthening the integration of these fields of research. Given this need for cross-training in the basic behavioral and biological sciences, NIGMS has taken the lead in developing a trans-NIH pre-doctoral training program centered on this interface. Although the topic area is different, this new program may be modeled after several successful interfacial training programs such as the NIGMS Chemistry-Biology Interface program. The proposed program will strongly encourage faculty involvement from multiple departments spanning the behavioral and biological sciences and would provide each student in the program with cross-training and thesis opportunities in both the behavioral and biological sciences. A trans-NIH committee, chaired by Dr. Berg, and with representation from 13 NIH Institutes and Centers, has been established. A subcommittee, chaired by Dr. Alison Cole, is currently drafting a program announcement slated for release in early 2006 and possible funding in FY07, pending available funds.

 

Contact: Dr. Jeremy M. Berg, bergj@mail.nih.gov , (301) 594-2172

 

 

Since 1999, NIGMS has sought to actively foster structural biology programs and investigators supported both by the Institute and within the broader scientific community by offering supplemental funding to existing synchrotron user facilities. In partnership with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIGMS has also established a new, state-of-the-art facility at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Charles Edmonds discussed progress of the General Medicine and Cancer Institutes Collaborative Access Team (GM/CA-CAT) project, based upon input from Dr. Janet L. Smith, GM/CA-CAT Director, and Dr. Robert Fischetti, GM/CA-CAT Project Manager. Dr. Edmonds also commented on the effort within the context of NIGMS programmatic interests. 

 

Contact:  Dr. Charles G. Edmonds, edmondsc@nigms.nih.gov , (301) 594-4428

 

 

The field of structural biology has become increasingly dependent on synchrotron X-ray sources for solving both routine and challenging problems. NIGMS, together with NCI, is developing three new state-of-the-art beamlines for macromolecular crystallography at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. Dr. Janet L. Smith, of the University of Michigan, and Director of the new GM/CA-CAT facility, provided information about its ability to exploit the latest in synchrotron and beamline technology. GM/CA-CAT aims to provide small, tunable, brilliant, robust X-ray beams as well as a streamlined, user-friendly format for today’s most challenging projects. GM/CA-CAT Project Manager Dr. Robert Fischetti presented technical specifications, describing progress and challenges. He noted that automated sample-handling is being developed for high-throughput structure determination as well as for traditional problem-based structural biology.

 

Contacts:  Dr. Janet Smith, janetsmi@umich.edu , (734) 615-9564; Dr. Robert Fischetti, rfischetti@anl.gov , (630) 252-0660

 

 

NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR) has a mission critical to the success of the agency’s grant-funding program: to see that NIH grant applications receive fair, independent, expert, and timely reviews--free from inappropriate influences--so that NIH can fund the most promising research. While the NIH peer review system is widely viewed as second to none, it has not kept pace with the rapid changes taking place within the biomedical/academic community. CSR director Dr. Antonio Scarpa described CSR’s current plans to develop and implement needed changes, which fall into three categories based on complexity, impact, and time of implementation. First, Dr. Scarpa described possible changes in CSR operations that aim to (i) increase communications between CSR, ICs, and reviewers and applicants; (ii) increase uniformity and efficiency of review; and (iii) facilitate the work of IC program staff. Secondly, Dr. Scarpa presented potential changes in current systems that may: (i) shorten the review cycle; (ii) address concerns that clinical research is not properly evaluated; (iii) improve the assessment of innovative, high-risk/high-reward research; and (iv) improve the recruitment and retainment of high-quality reviewers. Third, regarding possible new systems, Dr. Scarpa proposed the following question: If we didn’t have any peer-review system and we had to design on from scratch, what would it look like? Dr. Scarpa stressed the importance of asking such questions and making the necessary changes to ensure the vitality of NIH peer review, NIH research, and the future health of people everywhere.

 

Contact:  Dr. Antonio Scarpa, scarpat@csr.nih.gov , (301) 435-1114

 

 

Although the structures of many HIV proteins have been determined by X-ray diffraction and NMR, only a few structures of HIV components complexed with cellular components have been solved. Nonetheless, these complexes provide attractive targets for new generations of anti-AIDS drugs. Dr. Cassatt proposed a plan to fund two centers focused upon the structural determination of complexes between HIV proteins and cellular components. Dr. Cassatt noted that no new funds will be required to finance the effort; necessary resources will be funneled from expiring AIDS-related program project grants. The new centers, to be funded in FY07, would take advantage of the technologies developed through the NIGMS Protein Structure Initiative (PSI) by setting up automated procedures for cloning, expression, and structure determination. Structures to be determined would originate from the PSI centers themselves as well as from individual research grants (R01s and R21s) linked to the centers. The linked R01s and R21s, which are expected to provide a wide range of expertise that would be coordinated with that of the centers, would be funded through a separate announcement issued by the NIAID Division of AIDS Research. Dr. Cassatt requested, and received, Council approval to initiate plans for establishing the AIDS Structural Biology Centers.

 

Contact: Dr. James Cassatt, cassattj@nigms.nih.gov, (301) 594-0828