Create a "Center of Excellence" designation in Cardiovascular Research akin to NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Center designation. Specific qualifications for such a designation will need to be defined. However this will encourage institutions to invest heavily in CV research to support such designation. In this way, local institutions will partner with NHLBI to support discovery in heart and vascular research.

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.

Should training in biostatistics, computer science, bioinformatics become broader for the entire biomedical community in this era of very large data sets?

 

How can we grow the number of specialists in biostatistics (and these related fields) without causing an oversupply?

Expanding the training efforts (e.g. greater number of funded summer programs, extend training beyond 2 summers, provision for 5-year grants so an additional cohort can be included) would be highly beneficial.

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.

We need to provide more uniform education and incentives for mentors.

As the current chair of the Research and Training Division, I would like to convey that the AAAAI membership would like the NHLBI to consider the following in the development of its strategic plan:

 

NHLBI should be challenged on how best to provide career development grants to junior faculty involved in “group based” clinical and bench science.

What are the benefits to the US in funding global health research in low-to-middle-income countries?

One of the major challenges in translating from bench-to-bedside and back is communication: the ability of basic and clinical scientists to understand each other's scientific language to be able to appreciate the importance of the other’s research questions and findings.

The lymphatic vascular network connects the parenchymal interstitium through the nodes to the veins. Lymph serves as the transport pathway between these compartments and via its flow, controls interstitial fluid, macromolecular exchange, lipid absorption, immune cell trafficking and is critical to edema prevention/resolution, lipid metabolism, inflammation and immunity. Knowledge of this vascular network lags far behind... more »

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

Only 10-20% of graduates from PhD programs in the biomedical sciences will pursue a scientific career in the traditional tenure track academic model.

This is in part due to a mismatch between a large number of highly qualified scientists and the relatively small number of tenure track positions available. Instead of viewing the careers of the 80-90% as "alternative careers", we have to accept that in fact the traditional... more »

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.

Traditionally the Health Care model has meant that patients come to HCF for their care. Hospitals are increasingly overcrowded and also not always the best place to be due to the risk for nosocomial infections. Utilizing existing community resources to enhance the health both acute and chronic deserves exploration at the national level. Training paramedics to do chronic disease monitoring as well as as remotely work with... more »

Funding and review mechanisms are essential resources that can facilitate or hinder innovative research to meet the NHLBI goals. These resources must be refocused to result in identification and funding of the type of innovative research being sought by NHLBI.
The opportunities for leveraging available NHLBI funds with other sources should be considered formally as a component of overall budget planning, not just on... more »