Biophysical Society Newsletter - March 2015

10

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

2015

MARCH

NIGMS Director Lorsch on Developing a More Productive, Efficient and Sustainable Biomedical Research Enterprise The Public Affairs Committee was pleased to host Jon Lorsch , Director of the National Institute for General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIGSM, NIH), as a guest speaker at the Meeting. Lorsch, who has been director of the Institute since 2013, focused his talk on a new pilot program the Institute has launched, which he hopes will become a new model for funding research at NIH. The purpose of the new program, “Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA),” is to fund labs rather than individual projects. In exchange for more flexibility, longer support periods (five years), and less time writing grant proposals than R01 grants allow, principal investigators agree that if awarded a MIRA, it will be their only NIGMS grant. Lorsch hopes that a side benefit to the Institute and the research community is that the program will free up valuable dollars currently going to a small number of labs for wider distribu- tion, increasing the pure number of investigators funded. MIRA grants will be capped at $750,000 per year. Lorsch would like the community to start talking about how many researchers NIH funds, rather than grants, as a metric. In order to keep the size of the pilot program manageable, the first RFA allows only investigators currently holding two or more NIGMS grants or one grant of more than $400,000 to apply. This RFA can be found at http://1.usa.gov/17TlcPQ. A second RFA is under development that will be open to early career investigators. As part of his presentation, Lorsch presented data illustrating how NIGMS funds are currently (and historically) distributed, productivity per principle investigator based on funding levels, and several other illuminating charts. Lorsch was generous enough to provide these slides for individuals to view after the meeting. They can be viewed on the BPS website at http://bit.ly/bpslorsch.

Biophysical Society TV The Society is pleased to provide Biophysical Society TV as a means for individuals to hear directly from some of the meeting presenters, the Society leadership, and meeting attendees. The short videos provide another opportunity for the biophysics community to stay up-to-date on interesting research findings and learn more about the Society’s programs. The videos are freely available at www.biophysics.org/2015meeting. High School Students Visit BPS 2015

Students from Baltimore's ConneXions Com- munity Leadership Academy toured the Exhibit Hall in small groups with BPS members Candice Etson , Ryan Hoffman , Virginia Smith , and Liskin Swint-Kruse . The goal of their visit was to have fun socializing with professional scientists, helping to overcome one of the social barriers towards a career in science. The groups enjoyed the Biomo- lecular Discovery Dome, learned about new tech- nologies from exhibitors, viewed the submissions for the Art of Science competition, and heard poster presentations. When the afternoon was over, the students were excited about the range of activities that scientists enjoy, from making art to developing technology. They returned to their school with new insights into the social world of science, along with some new vocabulary and sore feet.