During our Starting Your Own Lab webinar, attendees asked so many insightful questions that we ran out of time to respond to all of them. So we asked nine NIGMS early career investigators to tackle the most popular ones in short videos, which were featured on our social media. Now, you can watch the whole series on our YouTube channel.

UPDATE: The video from this webinar is now available.

We were unable to get together in person for this year’s Native American Research Centers for Health (NARCH) program meeting. Instead, we’re hosting a virtual meeting for NARCH investigators, project directors, and community leaders:

Friday, December 11, 1:30-5:45 p.m. ET

Funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) for the Graduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (G-RISE) (PAR-21-026) and the Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) (PAR-21-025) T32 programs have been issued. The FOAs continue the shared goal to develop a diverse pool of scientists earning Ph.D. degrees who have the skills necessary to transition successfully into careers in the biomedical research workforce.

The new G-RISE and IMSD FOAs have an application receipt date of February 26, 2021. The earliest start date for both programs is February 2022.

We’ve issued a new funding opportunity announcement (FOA): Exploring the Scientific Value of Existing or New Sepsis Human Biospecimen Collections (R21/R33 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed) (PAR-21-077). This FOA aims to promote the optimal use, testing, and sharing of patient-derived materials. It stems from recommendations of the NAGMSC working group on sepsis and input from the scientific community for strategies to rebalance NIGMS’ investment in sepsis research.

In September, we hosted a virtual meeting for investigators and students supported by the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program to introduce them to strategic initiatives from NIH leaders in response to COVID-19, and to highlight scientific progress by IDeA researchers. We were pleased with the overwhelming response from the IDeA community—there were approximately 750 attendees and more than 180 abstracts submitted.