Mike ReddyProgram Director

NIGMSmichael.reddy@nih.gov

“After your first Award”

NIH Regional SeminarMay 2015

Baltimore, MD 2015

When you look back 30 years from now……

what do you think your career will have looked

like?

Moving Walkway

Roller Coaster

Rube Goldberg Machine

Does this dude up front have any Street Cred?

I was born in a shoebox on Flatbush Avenue

in Brooklyn, NY

Mentorship

One size doesn’t fit all. So let’s talk about this.

How to Chose a Mentor?

Perhaps you should look around and evaluate potential candidates the same

way you originally chose your Ph.D. advisor? There’s probably someone in your own department - or in another

department on campus - that reminds you of why you originally chose your graduate

advisor.

OK. How about this? You pick someone who is very successful and in their mid-career stage to emulate.

You think to yourself that this is where you want to be in your own

career 10 years from now. That might be a good mentor, right?

Modern Concepts of “Mentoring”

• Developmental Networking• Networking Constellations

• Mutual Mentoring

MISTY COPELAND(Ballerina)

“You have to be open and receptive. There can be people

in front of you who could be great mentors, but if you can’t

be open to it, it’s pointless.”

My take-home advice: Find yourself a Muse….

maybe???

A mentor (of sorts) as well……..

Your Interactions with yourProgram Director

8:00 AM: Scores from your application are released.

8:03 AM: You call up your Program Director and ask if your 31% score will be funded.

Good or Bad?

It’s 3 hours before the Deadline of receipt-of-your-application. So you pick up the phone, dial-up your Program Director and ask them penetrating questions such as:

Is 10 pt font allowed if I use “Baskerville Old Face” as my font?

I grew up in Europe so I am only familiar with the metric system: Is the current margin limit equal to exactly 25.4 mm or can I get away with using 24.0 mm?

The instructions indicate that I can send in a one-page update to the Study Section after I submit my application. However, I’m a New Investigator - who works in a IDeA State - and I was wondering if I could get permission to send in 1.5 pages instead?

Good or Bad?

You’re attending an important National Scientific meeting next month and are aware of the fact that your Program Director will also be in attendance. So you convince yourself beforehand that it’s best for your Career if you AVOID meeting them at all costs! You are certain that interacting with them only in 2 dimensions (via email) - as opposed to actually getting to meet them in 3D – is the way to go.

Good or Bad?

Homer in 3D

Respect and Revere your AOR!!

Authorized Organizational RepresentativeAKA

Business official

A vital component of their job is to keep current with the latest

requirements, FOAs (Funding Opportunity Announcement), and

RFAs (Request for Application) available from the NIH.

May I suggest that you be proactive and schedule an Annual Presentation at Faculty Meetings where your

AOR can efficiently cover issues such as: new compliance directives changes in deadlines new requirements or other significant changes.

Such as the new RESUBMISSION policy: NIH no longer limits the number of times you

can resubmit an application with essentially the same content and scope as an earlier

application.

But guess who DOES know this situation and can begin to make things right??

You had no idea at all about this!

Some of you use animals in your Research (or use animals to make antibodies). As you may or may not know, there are a lot of hoops to jump through in Grant Applications to legally use animals. One of the most important one is that your Institute must have a current IACUC Animal Authorization license. It turns out that yours has expired several months ago.

Similarly, for you oddball PIs who use stem cells in your research, especially

funky personalized one-of-a-kind stem cell lines, you probably don’t spend a lot of your own time educating yourself about

current legal NIH reporting requirements.

http://stemcells.nih.gov/Pages/Default.aspx

Guess who does??

So when a PI is unaware of this fact and sends a vital document directly to the

NIH Grants Administrator

NOT the PI!!

Of final overriding importance: NIH requires ALL official correspondence from

your Institute to come through the AOR.

- on the same day the AOR handling your submission has left for their 2 week

vacation - well that’s just too bad.

Ain’t it?

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If I haven’t convinced you that you don’t know everything there is to know about

the process of submitting grant applications…..fine.

But I assure you that you will come crawling to your AOR 24 hours before the

submission deadline.

What should be your overarching mindset

as you begin to develop your own Research Program?

Think like a Farmer.

Plan for a drought!!!

• What’s selling for the highest price at the Market?

• Don’t overwater

• Rotate crops

• Apply fertilizer

How to Develop a Research Program

Nota Bene:

30% of the NIH Common Fund is reserved for investigator-initiated, High Risk/High Reward Initiatives:http://commonfund.nih.gov/highrisk/index

• Learn to say NO.

• Get up 1 hour earlier. Including weekends.

• Watch Sesame Street. Regularly.

Balancing your Life and your Career

My NIH Colleagues and I are inviting everyone of you here to step upon ours. And move forward

one of Natural Selection’s most awesome inventions:

SHOULDERS

How Many Questions Do you Have? 1, 2, 3 or 4???

Inspiration