Dr. Kenneth Gibbs. Credit: NIGMS.

I’m pleased to announce that Kenneth Gibbs has been selected as the new director of our Division of Training and Workforce Development (TWD). Kenny is an immunologist by training and is currently chief of the Cross-Disciplinary Pathways Program Branch in TWD. He also oversees the Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) program, research grants on the “science of science” in the biomedical research enterprise, and scientific conference grants. He has also managed research grants in the areas of stem cell biology for the NIGMS Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.

Principal investigators (PIs) occasionally tell us they don’t plan to apply for the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program because their institutions expect them to have multiple R01 grants and thus they need to stick with R01 funding. To address this issue, we thought it would be useful to examine the likelihood of getting more than one NIGMS R01.

Figure 1 shows the percentage of PIs who held more than one NIGMS R01 between fiscal years 2014 and 2024 (FY14 and FY24). The first MIRA grants were awarded in FY16, so FY14 and FY15 represent years prior to the beginning of the program. In FY14 and FY15, only 16% of PIs had more than one NIGMS R01. This percentage hovered around 14-15% until 2019, when it began declining. The decline was likely the result of an increasing number of PIs converting their R01s to MIRAs and an Institute policy that PIs could not have more than two NIGMS R01s. Importantly, even before the MIRA program started, only a small fraction of PIs had more than one NIGMS R01. These data are consistent with an analysis we performed previously of how many early stage investigators (ESIs) who were awarded NIGMS R01s between FY04 and FY15 obtained a second NIGMS R01.

Dr. Mercedes Rubio. Credit: NIGMS.

I’m pleased to announce that Mercedes Rubio has been selected as the new director of our Division for Research Capacity Building. Mercedes is a medical sociologist by training and is currently chief of the Predoctoral Basic Biomedical and Medical Scientist Training Programs Branch in our Division of Training and Workforce Development. She also manages research training, scientific conference, and research on intervention grants and has been the program director for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Diversity Program Consortium’s National Research Mentoring Network.

In Vannevar Bush’s 1945 report Science, the Endless Frontier [PDF], he wrote:

“A nation which depends upon others for its new basic scientific knowl­edge will be slow in its industrial progress and weak in its competitive position in world trade, regardless of its mechanical skill.”

This principle also applies to U.S. states and the academic institutions in them. When resources are limited, organizational leaders are often tempted to focus their research efforts on applied studies that could have short-term payoffs. It’s easy to understand this reasoning because there are often pressing health, social, and economic problems close at hand that are crying out for prompt action. However, economic studies, including a recent paper by Hans Gersbach and colleagues and a 2012 study by Andrew Toole, have indicated that basic research is essential to overall advancement, even on a local level.

NIH implemented multiple principal investigator (MPI) grants starting in 2007 to support projects led by teams of principal investigators (PIs) who have shared responsibility and are each named as a PI for the award. Although the MPI arrangement can be effective in enabling single-grant supported projects for integrated teams working on common sets of goals, it isn’t the optimal approach for many collaborative projects and can pose challenges in some circumstances. For example, if an early stage investigator (ESI) joins an MPI R01 or other MPI major research grant, there may be unintended consequences such as the following: 

NIGMS continues to support a broad range of scientific topics and investigators within its research portfolio, including support for investigator-initiated research project grants (RPGs) at institutions throughout the country. As part of its commitment to transparency, NIGMS examines and publishes data on annual trends reflected in its RPG portfolio. In this post, we review and describe investigator-level trends associated with competing R01/R01-equivalent RPGs including those in the Institute’s R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program.

It’s with mixed emotions that I share that Ming Lei left our Division for Research Capacity Building (DRCB) earlier this month to become senior associate vice president for research and graduate education at West Virginia University (WVU) Health Sciences. Ming also joined the faculty in WVU’s School of Medicine as vice dean for research and a professor in the department of microbiology, immunology, and cell biology.

UPDATE: The video from this webinar is available.

NIGMS supports basic research that increases our understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. NIGMS also supports research in specific clinical areas that affect multiple organ systems: anesthesiology and peri-operative pain; clinical pharmacology common to multiple drugs and treatments; and injury, critical illness, sepsis, and wound healing. We have five scientific divisions that support research, research training, and capacity building in a range of scientific fields.

NIGMS continues to support a wide range of topics and investigators, maintaining a broad biomedical research portfolio. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2022, NIGMS received a congressional appropriation of $3,092,373,000. Consistent with the Institute’s mission, a large portion of these funds support investigator-initiated research project grants (RPGs) at institutions throughout the country. As part of its commitment to transparency, NIGMS publishes data on annual trends in its grant portfolios. In this post, we describe investigator-level trends for RPGs and review the trends associated with competing RPGs as well as those in the Institute’s Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) program.

NIGMS Investigator-Level Trends for Research Grants

At NIGMS, we focus on supporting a broad group of investigators. As a result, we monitor two statistics that describe our investigator pool: the cumulative investigator rate and the number of funded early stage investigators (ESIs). The number of newly funded ESIs has notably increased over recent years, and continued support for ESIs is integral to the success of the biomedical research enterprise and is a priority for the Institute. Figure 1 illustrates the number of ESIs who received their first competing NIGMS R01-equivalent grants each year between FY 2013 and FY 2022. In FY 2022, NIGMS awarded R01-equivalent grants to 319 ESIs in total: 31 investigators received R01 awards, 268 investigators received R35 (MIRA) awards, and 20 investigators received NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards (DP2s). These data include DP2s (four awards) administered by NIGMS on behalf of the NIH Office of the Director. The number of funded ESI MIRAs in FY 2022 was the largest to date, and more than four times larger than in the program’s first year. Overall, the number of funded ESIs has risen almost every year since FY 2013, with the slight decrease in the number of awards between FY 2017 and FY 2018 due in part to the introduction of the MIRA program in FY 2016 and a temporary reduction in the built-up ESI applicant pool as more ESIs received funding.

I’m pleased to announce the selection of Shawn Drew Gaillard, Ph.D., as the new director of our Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (GMCDB). Shawn has been the acting director of the Division since February 2022. She will begin in this new role on January 15.

Shawn joined GMCDB as chief of the Developmental and Cellular Processes Branch in 2019, overseeing grants focused on organismal response to environmental stressors. Prior to this role, she was the research training officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and before that, she was a program director in our Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity and former Division of Genetics and Developmental Biology. Her experience also includes serving as a science education fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and directing what is now the NIH Academy on Health Disparities.