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April Announcements

NIH Unite: Ending Structural Racism (ESR) Activities

The NIH UNITE initiative was established to identify and address structural racism within the NIH-supported and the greater scientific community.

The ESR Intranet includes various resources like the Toolkit, Newsletter, FAQs, and other information.

UNITE Milestones and Progress and the Co-Chairs Corner (public ESR webpages) are other avenues to stay informed on UNITE efforts.


The Office of Education Is Reviving the Fellows Advisory Committee and We Are Seeking Members—New and Former Members Are Welcome!

The committee meets monthly to help develop and provide input on career development programs to support NICHD fellows. The Advisory Committee will also steer the annual NICHD Fellows’ Retreat, which will be held in fall 2022. This includes developing the program, reviewing abstracts, selecting speakers, and moderating sessions. This is a great opportunity to serve your NICHD community and have an impact on the programs and career development opportunities available to fellows!

Meetings will be held once a month on Thursdays from 3–4 p.m. The Zoom link will be circulated a few days in advance. Our next meeting will be held on April 28th.

If you are interested in joining the committee, please email Katherine Lamb (katherine.lamb@nih.gov). Any previous members of the committee who still wish to participate are also asked to please email to let us know of their continued interest.


NICHD Graduate Student Mor Alkaslasi Featured in IRP Blog

NICHD graduate student Mor Alkaslasi (Le Pichon laboratory) along with graduate students from NIEHS, NIMH, NCI/CCR, and NIA were featured by the Intramural Research Program (IRP) in an article about this year’s Graduate Student Research Symposium. Learn about Mor’s journey studying the brain—from understanding neurological diseases to deciphering what happens after traumatic brain injury—in the “I am Intramural” blog post feature.


Three-Day Grant Writing Workshop for All NICHD & NINDS Fellows

“Write Winning NIH Grant Proposals”
May 16, 17, & 18

This year the “Write Winning NIH Grant Proposals” workshop will be virtual and split amongst three days, from 1–4:30 p.m. each day . Our institute has 25 slots total— register now!

Please note that day three (May 18th) will focus specifically on the NIH Career Transition Award (NIH K-series). Anyone interested in applying for a K grant is welcome, but attendance on May 16th and 17th is required.

The workshop will address both practical and conceptual aspects that are important to the proposal-writing process. Attendees will receive the “Grant Writer’s Workbook”—an invaluable, up-to-date reference tool for those who intend to write NIH grants in the future.

Topics include:

  • General grant writing proposal concepts
  • Understanding NIH funding priorities
  • Funding opportunity announcements, the importance of the program officer, and different funding mechanisms
  • Creating and developing the essential components of a grant application
  • The grant review process
  • Writing a career transition award application (NIH K-series grants)—day 3 (for those interested in attending)

If you would like to register for this grant writing workshop, please email Ms. Katherine Lamb (katherine.lamb@nih.gov).

Plus a few NIH grants for you to consider:

  • For the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence awards, applications and resubmissions must be submitted before the end of your fourth year. This opportunity is open to all postdoctoral fellows, domestic and international, competing for start-up funding to establish a research program in a US institution.
  • Transition Career Development Awards (K22) provide support to mentored, non-independent investigators in transitioning to their first independent tenure-track faculty positions. Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents.
  • The Postdoctoral Research Associate (PRAT/Fi2) program specifically supports intramural postdoctoral trainees. Applicants must be US citizens or permanent residents and within their first year of NIH postdoc training.

The Office of Education is more than willing to assist you with your search of funding opportunities and grant writing, from reviewing with you eligibility criteria/application requirements to providing guidance documents that outlines the entire NIH application/submission process.

In addition to the grants above, we have established a vetted list of grant opportunities that intramural fellows can apply to (for both domestic and international fellows).


Register Now for the 2022 NIH Career Symposium

(Adapted from the Office of Intramural Training and Education (OITE) Career Symposium official announcement. Check your emails for more info!)

Registration is now open for the NIH Career Symposium (May 11–13, 2022) for intramural trainees. This year the symposium will be held via an online platform to make it easier and to provide more interactions between participants and speakers. You are welcome to come to every session, or just the ones you are interested in. Register now, and any slots not filled by intramural trainees will be opened to outside trainees on April 15.

  1. View the full agenda
  2. See the speakers
  3. Register here (the event is free)

Once registered, you can explore the agenda and the current speakers—more speakers are being added in many sessions, so check back often! If you are planning to attend particular sessions, please add that to your Agenda within the Whova pages so that an adequate number of speakers are planned (instructions below).

Instructions for WHOVA Agenda ADD after registering

  1. Find the Agenda tab on the side of the screen. You should see a list of sessions for that day.
  2. You can move through different days by selecting the date you want to view on the calendar at the top of the agenda.
  3. Browse or search for sessions on the top bar.
  4. Once you find the session you want to access, tap on it.
  5. If the session is live, it will begin playing immediately upon entering. Otherwise, a message will indicate the scheduled start time.
  6. If the session hasn’t occurred yet, you can click Add to My Agenda to put the session on your own personal agenda.

Training Opportunity to Learn about Cluster Randomized Trials

May 3–5, 2022, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
Register at https://events.cancer.gov/nci/clustertrials

Purpose: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) invites attendance for a virtual short course that will provide training in the design, conduct, and analysis of cluster randomized trials (CRTs), including parallel CRTs, stepped-wedge CRTs, and cluster randomized cross-over trials (CRXO). The course is jointly sponsored by NCI's Healthcare Delivery Research Program and Implementation Science Team. CRTs are increasingly used to evaluate interventions to improve care delivery and to study strategies for implementing evidence-based interventions into routine clinical practice. They require specific methods of design and statistical analysis. The course will address:

  • Rationale for using these designs
  • Specific design considerations
  • The randomization process
  • Sample size calculations
  • Analytic methods
  • Ethical considerations
  • Practical issues in trial management
  • Trial reporting and interpretation

Principles will be illustrated using case studies of the different variations of CRTs across the cancer control continuum (prevention, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship, and at end-of-life).

Intended Audience: This course will address the training needs of doctorally prepared cancer care delivery researchers and implementation scientists, as well as postdoctoral fellows and other trainees, and other scientific team members such as project coordinators. Some of the sessions are specifically targeted at statisticians, methodologists, and researchers with an interest in more complex statistical topics.

Participation in the course is free of charge, but registration is required.

Questions about the workshop may be submitted at https://healthcaredelivery.cancer.gov/about/contact.html.