Unless we fix and increase the R01 funding rate, which most basic scientists depend upon, we will continue to lose outstanding scientists of all ages and not have the next generation of scientists or the numbers of currently outstanding scientists to answer any of these compelling questions and critical challenges. Related to this, much has been written about the significant failure rate of clinical trials in part due... more »

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.

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.

The challenge I write about is the significant lack of funding for science in NHLBI. There are currently programs to increase the funding of early career investigators and many senior faculty are obtaining continuing renewal.

How will NHLBI keep those in their middle of their career years from dropping out of the biomedical workforce?

Why don’t we have a program that is easy to follow in maintaining at an early age that extends all the way to Senior Citizenship? Culturally diverse staff can improve everyones chances of getting needed care that is multi-cultural.

How can we provide better support for junior investigators who are transitioning from K Award to R Award funding?

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:

There has been a decline in research-based faculty in the past few years.  The challenge is two-fold.  First, increase the research faculty pipeline with increased focus on training and recruitment of research focused fellows... more »

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:

 

Since the focus of research has changed over the past decade, training programs need to be encouraged to use newer models of research in their training and mentoring of potential research faculty.

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.

The main therapeutic challenges that remain to be addressed in the field of cardiac arrhythmias generally require the participation of scientific expertises as diverse as physiology, medicine, engineering, chemistry, nanotechnology, material science and others. Today, there is little incentive to assemble such cross-expertise teams. Novel funding mechanisms could reward the time and effort invested in forming cross-expertise... more »

Why the funding rate for AREA (R15) grants from NHLBI is at its lowest with a success rate of only 7.2% in 2014?

We need to spread R01 funding around more to ensure that the best science has funding adequate to move forward. To do this I believe changing how we think about R01 funding and expenditures can be used to put the NIH funds to better use. Too often successful researchers have the majority of their salaries on R01s and the institutions have little skin in the game. PI salaries can be a large part of the escalating budget... more »

The strategic vision to enhance translation and to enhance the workforce both require training that spans the scope of basic science, pre-clinical development, clinical trials. We lack coherent mechanisms for training the next generation of translational researchers, some of whom may be MDs, and some PhDs. A program should provide cross-training of Clinical Fellows and Postdocs to reflect the needed interactions between... more »

I would like to suggest the following changes in RO1 funding: (1) Reduce the amount but maintain the duration of each RO1 award to make academic research labs SMALLER but BETTER - This will force PIs pay closer attention to experimental design, to improve the efficiency and accuracy. It may entice more PIs to do more experiments themselves, the best way to reduce errors, maintain consistency and keep in touch with the... more »

Recent results suggests that glycans play critical roles in human physiology and pathology. Understanding glycan protein interactions may lead to next generation of drugs. But limited research is being funded on understanding structure - function relationships on glycans. Likewise, we are training very few researchers in the glycosciences. More programs are needed to impart glycoscience knowledge at the undergraduate,... more »