Aside from a handful of locations around the country, there are no local opportunities for the vast majority of PhD students to learn about glycobiology. A search on NIH Reporter for T32 grants with "glycobiology” reveals two grants (one NCI for cancer cell biology, one NIGMS for pharmacology). Neither of these grants are focused upon glycobiology. In fact, glycobiology is essentially never integrated into any standard... more »

NIH is already facing a challenge in increasing the number and viability of researchers of color. Obesity research in black (or other high risk minority) populations can be used to explore how research training programs that focus on specific issues of importance to populations of color might contribute to the recruitment and success of ethnic minority researchers in the NIH system.

How do we add communication skills to our training programs to improve scientists’ communication with the public?

Critical Challenge

Training programs may consider a more green approach by producing easy to access on-line materials and resources to be shared with other training programs and trainees, with a common website repository where such information is archived.

Recent changes in the biosketch do nothing to help us reviewers, and put a burden on submitters to change and learn new formats. I see no reason for this at all, the previous iteration was fine and gave all information needed.

Nothing more need be said.

NHLBI should consider creating specific programs that encourage the participation of investigators that often do not apply to NHLBI such as kidney researchers.

Scientists feel tremendous pressure to publish numerous scientific papers in order to receive NIH funding and tenure at academic institutions. Cognitive biases of scientists and publication biases of journals that publish this barrage of papers will likely result in the publication of findings that are probably not reproducible (see "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False" by John P. A. Ioannidis in PLOS Medicine... more »

Given the difficulties of obtaining funding, especially among young investigators, NHLBI should consider public-private partnerships to increase the pool of available opportunities.

Expanding the base of the program foci (e.g. including NCI in addition to the current HLBS).

What are the best methods to identify future training areas and develop/adapt training and mentorship programs to address future critical needs?

Although sickle cell was first described more than 100 years ago and more than 100,000 individuals in the US are living with sickle cell disease, healthcare providers still lack basic knowledge of the key components in providing care for individuals with sickle cell. This often leads to poor health outcomes including stigmatization of patients with sickle cell seeking care. Evidenced-based curriculum should be available... more »

It is clear that there are concerns about reproducibility and quality control in science in general and in obesity-related research in particular. Increased opportunities for training in rigorous scientific practices for obesity researchers and biomedical and behavioral researchers in general may be helpful to increase rigor and reproducibility.

How best to train T1 investigators in using big health care data to test their basic science hypotheses related to heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders and thus generate sufficient confirmation to justify clinical interventions.

There is a need to develop funding mechanisms for high risk/high reward ideas which have a high potential to open new paths for investigation in important fields which would lead to new discoveries.