Biophysical Newsletter - August 2014

6

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

2014

AUGUST

Public Affairs

New NIH/NSF Program Strives to Move Biomedical Innova- tions to the Marketplace The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are collaborat- ing on an initiative, NIH Innovation Corps Team Training Pilot Program (I-Corps at NIH), to train NIH-funded researchers on how to evaluate their scientific discoveries for commercial potential, with the aim of accelerating biomedical innovations into applied health technologies. Researchers with Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Phase I awards from participating NIH institutes are eligible to apply to participate in the training but must assemble a team that includes a corporate officer and an industry expert. The NIH institutes that will participate in the pilot program are the National Cancer Institute, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Teams selected for I-Corps at NIH will participate in a nine-week boot camp in which experienced business-savvy instructors with biomedical business experience work closely with teams of researchers to help them explore potential markets for their federally funded innovations. According to a press release issued by NIH and NSF, Michael Weingarten , director of the NCI SBIR Development Center, and his colleagues initially reached out to NSF about offering the program through NIH because they witnessed the difference I-Corps made for the graduates. To date, more than 300 three-person teams have completed the NSF I-Corps training. “I-Corps will help teach NIH-funded start-ups how to build scalable business models around new technologies they’re developing for the detection and treatment of disease. The program sheds new light on how companies can deal with important business risks such as protecting intellectual prop-

Congressional Appropriations Process Stalled What was supposed to be a somewhat smooth ap- propriations process compared to recent years has stalled over disagreements on policy issues rather than top line spending levels. The House and Sen- ate agreed on a top line budget number as part of a two year deal in December 2014, putting a budget resolution in place before the 2014 appropriations process even started. Even with that done, the two parties are having trouble finding common ground on the spending bills. A package of three FY 2015 appropriations bills that had been approved by the House stalled in the Senate after Senate Democrats and Republicans were unable to reach an agreement on the amend- ment process. The package included funding for NSF, and amendments were expected to decrease funding for the social sciences and/or geophysical research, to defund specific grants, and to challenge the peer review process. To help fend off those ef- forts, the Society called upon its members to write to their Senators and oppose any such amend- ments. In the two days before the bill was pulled from the floor, BPS members sent 291 letters. The Coalition for National Science Funding, of which the Biophysical Society is a member, also sent a let- ter opposing the potential amendments. After the bill was pulled from consideration, it was unclear when it would return to the Senate floor for con- sideration again. In light of the disagreement over the amendment process, the Senate Appropriations Committee also postponed consideration of the FY15 Energy and Water bill. The FY 2015 fiscal year begins on October 1, 2014. If the appropriations bills are not approved by Congress by the end of September, Congress must pass a continuing resolution funding the gov- ernment temporarily in order to prevent a govern- ment shutdown.