Like Questions at a Beauty Pagent

When applying for residency, the one portion of the application form with any potential for individual expression was the infamous personal statement. Having reviewed about a million of these now, I appreciate how mundane they can be. It is sort of like asking Miss USA contestants their opinions on world peace.

Now, for the first time in 26 years, I find myself constructing a personal statement.

As part of the recent changes at NIH, this component has been added to the humble biosketch. We now have to “briefly” explain why we are the best-est, most-qualified, ideal person to play our role on the project proposed.

The simple truth, that I am the person interested enough to propose this work, just won’t cut it.

How about “the voices in my head keep telling me to do this.” No?

“I am a gift from the gods about to impart new critical knowledge to your world.” Perhaps a bit over-the-top (although members of my family might find this one completely in character).

I finally played it straight. I listed my experience with the relevant techniques that have not yet been applied to a novel exciting model, and my clinical background that fits the question at hand. So predictable!

It should be bloody obvious from the proposal that I am the ideal person to pursue this question in this manner at this time. If it is not, then I have not written it right.

By the way, I am fully in favor of world peace. May I have a tiara now?

Photo courtesy of PhotoXpress.

How Much Can You Cram In a 12-Page Limit?

The gold standard for funding of biomedical research in the US, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), changes it forms in 2010.

Formerly 25 page applications will be shortened to 12, supposedly to make grant preparation and review kinder and friendlier. Makes NIH seem all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it?

Yesterday, a blogger over at The Scientist raised concerns about the new format.

According to Robert Kalb, a University of Pennsylvania neurologist who is also the chair of the NIH's cellular and molecular biology of neurodegeneration study section, the changes may favor senior scientist:

"it frees the experienced investigator to not provide as much feasibility and preliminary data because they can just cite their previous publications."
This, Kalb told The Scientist, means that applicants with robust publication histories, proven track records of scientific accomplishment, and more experience writing tersely about their research may have the edge over their younger, less experienced counterparts.

First, senior investigators do not always write well. I have reviewed plenty of proposals from “giants in the field” that were unholy messes of grammatical and contextual errors. Often there would be something good in the application- these are successful investigators- but poor communication skills made it excruciating to sift out. The contention that senior investigators are more likely to have published work with their techniques and data they can reference has more validity; however, a junior investigator without a paper citing most of the techniques in their proposal  is very unlikely to get a fundable score anyway. Even for programs that do not require preliminary data, lack of a publication record often “reduced enthusiasm” for the proposal.

As The Scientist blog, posted by Bob Grant, also points out:

The NIH has made efforts to make the peer-review process easier on young scientists, recently announcing guidelines that more generously rank applications submitted by younger investigators

My interest in this topic is, of course, selfish; I hope to submit a proposal in January 2010. I spent the past 2 days at an NIH-sponsored conference, gathering background applicable to my proposal. The changes provoke anxiety; I’m a “big-picture'” person, and reviewers have never felt my proposals include enough detail about experimental minutiae. Where am I going to write that stuff now? I guess I will just learn to deal with it, same as everyone else in my world.

Photo courtesy of PhotoXpress.

This post got delayed a day because my internet connection at Washington National Airport refused to let it upload; then we barely got home because of blizzard conditions in Omaha.

The Problem With Peer Review

"If this is the best of all possible worlds, what are the others?"

- Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 6

Peer review is a lousy way to score research proposals; it just seems to be the best one we have found to date. NIH is altering its application and review processes, attempting to improve things. Unfortunately, the major problem cannot be fixed.

What major problem? The peer reviewers.

For example (derived from my own experience and that of my colleagues):

A proposal is submitted to study biological process A in disease X. A model of disease X is proposed, and standard techniques will be used to examine the role of process A. On initial submission, the reviewers say that process A appears to be important in disease X, but “enthusiasm would be stronger” if further preliminary data were presented. Furthermore, pathway Y contributes to process A, so perhaps it should be included in the study.

As PI, you consider these suggestions and do further experiments to augment your preliminary data. You review studies of pathway Y and conclude that it should be included in your proposal. You rewrite you grant, and send it back to Bethesda.

This time, you have a novel reviewer. Those who saw the first version are satisfied, but the latest one feels that biological process B is of far more importance than process A, even though you have data and published literature from other labs supporting process A. Perhaps the latest reviewer believes you should study disease Z rather than disease X. Or maybe a different model should be used, even though you have been using this model for all other work in your lab. Or, perhaps, s/he wants all of the above changed.

By the way, the reviewers also criticize your productivity because, while generating the preliminary data requested, you have not continued to publish as many peer-reviewed journal articles.

This wackalunacy must stop.

It is one thing to suggest additional experiments or a better technique. These suggestions may strengthen the work.

Telling the PI to completely change the nature of the study is inappropriate:

• Look at process B even though your preliminary data and published studies support process A in your hypothesis
• Disease Z is more important than disease X, even though you have never studied disease Z

Proposals get toasted with this sort of criticism in each round of reviews. If we could fund the top 25-30% of proposals(which are getting scored in the very good-excellent range), some of these applications would still fly; in the current funding drought, any little glitch (no matter how trivial) can drop the score below the pay line.

I do not have the answer. I beg any reviewers reading this to play fair. Judge what is proposed; no study can examine every biological process! If your favorite pathway is omitted, fear not! Someone else may be asking that question; let this PI examine his/her idea! Occasionally I have seen someone who proposes to examine the role of process A in disease X, but is using a model of disease Z. This is a major flaw, and a change of model or disease is in order. It is NOT in order if you, the reviewer, find disease Z more interesting than disease X. Would you want someone to tell you to study disease X? I thought not…

NIH has shortened its application process and changed the scoring system. Somehow I don’t believe this will change reviewer behavior, but I will find out early in 2010.

In the meantime, I will just keep imagining worse worlds of review. I finally appreciate Candide.

Art courtesy of PhotoXpress.