For aspiring physician-scientists, securing grant funding early in their careers can make all the difference in establishing a thriving research program; however, the path from mentored career development awards, such as National Institutes of Health (NIH) K grants (career development grants) to independent research awards like R01 grants (research project grants for projects with mature ideas and preliminary data supporting a hypothesis) is extremely competitive. Even otolaryngology rock stars may struggle to land one.
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September 2024Here are some dos and don’ts from ENT researchers who succeeded in getting these elusive multi-million dollar grants for their research.
Finding Good Research Topics
Getting an R01 grant starts with a research idea that tackles a significant issue, one that affects a large number of patients, such as hearing loss. “If the cause is a lethal disease like cancer, that makes it even more significant,” said Rick Nelson, MD, PhD, professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at Indiana University in Indianapolis.
Dr. Nelson, who investigates the genetics of hearing loss, also emphasized the importance of working innovation into the proposal, such as new techniques or ideas on how something functions or can be treated. Dr. Nelson received his first R01 grant related to genetic hearing loss last year. The award was for $3.6 million and funds a study of the relatively common TMPRSS3 gene, which, when mutated, can cause congenital hearing loss as well as hearing loss in young children, depending on the variant (or mutation) in the TMPRSS3 gene.
“Certain mutations are what we call damaging, where they don’t allow the protein that’s made from the gene to function at all. We assume the more minor mutations cause less of an impact on the protein’s function,” Dr. Nelson said, adding that they are one year into a five-year grant, trying to understand what the TMPRSS3 gene does inside the inner ear and why it’s so important for hearing because the cellular function is still unknown.
Preliminary Research
“One of the rules of R01s is you always need more preliminary data than you think,” said Bradley Goldstein, MD, PhD, professor of head and neck surgery and communication sciences at Duke University in Durham, N.C. “Preliminary data gets at the approach and feasibility part of the grant, which helps convince reviewers that you can do the experiments you’re proposing. The best way to do that is having done some of these experiments that you can interpret and draw conclusions from.”
Preliminary data gets at the approach and feasibility part of the grant, which helps convince reviewers that you can do the experiments you’re proposing. The best way to do that is having done some of these experiments that you can interpret and draw conclusions from.” — Bradley Goldstein, MD, PhD