January 22, 2021 • 43 mins
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s Building Up the Nerve is a podcast for neuroscience trainees that takes you through the components of a grant application with successful awardees. We know that applying for NIH funding can be daunting, but we’re here to help—it’s our job!
In this episode, our grantee guests discuss how they approach writing the Specific Aims and the Research Strategy and how to determine the “right” amount of work for a research proposal. We also discuss tips on how to approach pitfalls and alternative approaches to the experimental design.
Featuring Maria Ali, Neurobiology PhD Candidate at the University of Virginia, Brielle Ferguson, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, and Nathan Smith, PhD, PI at Children’s National Hospital and Assistant Professor at George Washington University.
National Research Mentoring Network: http://nrmnet.net/
Transcript available at http://ninds.buzzsprout.com/. This episode has been edited since its original publication.
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Episode Transcript
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Lauren (00:02):
Welcome to the National Institute of Neurological Disorder's and
Stroke's Building Up the Nerve, a podcastfor neuroscience trainees that takes
you through the components of a grantapplication with successful awardees.
We know that applying for NIH fundingcan be daunting, but we're here to help.
It's our job.
Marguerite Matthews (00:22):
Hello, I'm Marguerite Matthews, a scientific
program manager at NINDS.
Lauren Ullrich (00:25):
And I'm Lauren Ullrich, a program director at NINDS.
And we're your hosts today.
Marguerite Mat (00:32):
This episode, we will talk about the specific aims and
research strategy of your application.
We'll focus on how to craft a specificaims page, how to choose the right scope
for your research strategy and how tointegrate that research strategy with
your training or career development plans.
Lauren Ullri (00:49):
And of course, our disclaimer still applies
talk about may only be relevant for NINDS.
So if you're applying to a different NIHInstitute or center, it's always best
to check with them about their policies.
Marguerite Matth (01:06):
And our guests today are Maria Ali, Dr. Brielle
Ferguson and Dr. Nathan Smith.
So let's get started with introductions.
Maria Ali (01:15):
Hi, I'm Maria.
I'm a current PhD candidate at theUniversity of Virginia in the Kucenas lab.
In the Kucenas lab, we use zebrafish as a vertebrate model to
study all things glia, basically.
So I study all the progenitorcells or OPCs, which are a group
of glial cells in the centralnervous system that migrate rapidly
(01:37):
throughout the brain and spinal cord.
We're able to observe this migratingor tiling during development.
However, we don't know much abouthow this is regulated molecularly.
So for my PhD, I've been investigatingvarious molecular mechanisms surrounding
tiling, including proliferation,migration, and contact-mediated repulsion.
(01:59):
So I actually receivedan F31 for this work.
And one of my hobbies outsideof work is I love watching
horror movies with my friends.
Laure (02:08):
Oh, what's your favorite?
Maria Ali (02:11):
Um, honestly don't really have a favorite.
I just watched Hereditary, whichwas really good and Midsommer,
which are by the same director andthey're creepy, but not too much.
I just really liked thestory of both of them.
Lauren Ullrich (02:23):
Nice.
Brielle Ferguson (02:24):
Hi everyone, I'm Brielle.
I'm a postdoc at Stanfordworking in John Hugenard's lab.
In the Hugenard lab, we study absenceepilepsy where, instead of the classic
convulsive seizures that many peopleare more familiar with, patients have
these brief periods of unconsciousness,where they lose consciousness and
motor function, and this can happenhundreds of times throughout the day.
Outside of when they're having thoseseizures they also have attention
(02:47):
impairments, which can make itreally difficult for them to perform
at a level that's comparable totheir peers, whether that's in the
classroom, in their interpersonalrelationships or even on the job force.
So my project is trying to understandwhy do they have those attention
impairments in the first place, andcan we figure out how to treat them?
So to do so, I use a genetic mousemodel of absence epilepsy, where we
(03:09):
have mice that have a mutation in agene that's also present in patients
and the mice have both absenceseizures and attention impairments.
Then I train the mice on automatedattention assays, and I either record
activity in their brain or I manipulateactivity in their brain to see how it
affects their attention performance.
My goal is to identify patternsof activity that are associated
(03:33):
with successful performance.
And with the goal that by identifyingthese, I can use those to better develop
treatments that can work both in absence,epilepsy, and disorders with attention
impairments across disease states.
I've received an F31 and an F32 andsupplements for R01s both during my
(03:54):
graduate work and my postdoctoral work.
I think it's important to notethat I applied for my F31,
three times before I got it.
So keep that in mind, definitelybe willing to try again.
It's very likely that you won't getit the first time and that's okay.
That was a tough lesson for me, but onceI realized that, it made it a lot better.
You go into it, knowing thatthat's a part of the process.
(04:15):
Hobbies and passions outside ofwork, I love doing yoga and I
love plants, I have about 40.
They make me happy and there'ssomething I can tend to inside,
and if that's an activity thatstill works during the pandemic.
Marguerite Matthews (04:28):
What's your favorite type of yoga?
I like a Vinyasa yoga.
I can tell you my leastfavorite type is hot yoga.
I hate sweating.
[Laughter] But just likethe Vinyasa or powerflow.
Yeah, I enjoy Vinyasa also.
Nathan (04:42):
Hello, I'm Nathan Smith.
I'm an assistant professor at GeorgeWashington University School of Medicine
and health sciences, and also a principalinvestigator at Children's National.
My lab that is neuro-glial interactionsbetween astrocytes, microglia and neurons
on the normal physiological conditions.
And then look for breakdowns incommunication between the three major cell
types in the brain, in order to understanddisease pathologies, such as attention
(05:04):
deficit disorder, epilepsy, depression.
As a graduate student, I appliedfor an F 31 the first time I
applied, it was not discussed.
The second time I applied, it was funded.
I applied for a F32 as apostdoctoral candidate.
It got a score, but it wasn't funded.
And now as a principal investigatorand an assistant professor,
I applied for an NIH KO1.
(05:25):
The first time I applied it wasn'tfunded, the second time it was funded.
And on the side, when I'm notdoing research or science, I have
a black belt in mixed martialarts, so I do martial arts.
Lauren Ullrich (05:35):
Wow.
Marguerite Matthew (05:36):
Can you tell us what got you into martial arts?
Nat (05:41):
I started doing some karate in college and everything else, but when
I got to graduate school, I needed anoutlet for, you know, all the stress
and I took up more and martial arts andthroughout graduate school, right before
I graduated, I transitioned over to myblack belt and it really did help a lot.
Let me tell ya.
[Laughter]
Lauren Ullrich (06:01):
so this episode, we are talking about
specific aims and research strategy.
And one of the questions that we geta lot is, you know, is there anything
different about the way that you write orconceptualize specific aims when you're
thinking about a fellowship or careerdevelopment award versus a research grant?
Marguerite (06:25):
And for those of our listeners who may have never applied for
a research grant, who may have seen itin your PIs grants, there's one page it's
kind of a summary page of what you planon doing and why you're going to do it.
Nathan Sm (06:38):
I took a stab at this and that since I've done the research
grant and the career development grants,uh, and I would say, I don't think
there is a difference, because themajor component of those proposals are
research, and basically you structureyour specific aims exactly the same.
And so there's no difference in ifit's a career development award or a
research grant, uh, you still have to,you're addressing a problem and you're
(07:01):
proposing what that problem is in thatspecific aims to get the reviewers to
say, okay, let me read more of thisto see if this is interesting, right?
In this particular sense.
I don't think there's a difference.
I think the only thing I wouldadd is when I was writing my fellowship,
a lot of the advice that I got was to makesure within your research grant, you were
kind of highlighting the techniques thatyou were going to learn, finding a balance
(07:23):
between the techniques that you alreadyknow, but also making it clear that a
lot of your aims were going to teachyou new skills or help you acquire new
skills in the lab and kind of showcasingwhy you need a training fellowship.
I think that was the onlydifference, the advice that I got.
Nathan Smith (07:39):
I think you could take both steps to do this, right?
For the K01, I structured it justlike I would do a research question.
As I moved from the specific aims tothe major proposal, I did discuss more
of how the specific techniques I wantedto learn during the career development
will help me reach my ultimate goal.
So I think you can do both,in other words, I should say.
Marguerite Matthews (08:01):
So In thinking about writing your aims.
How did you approach that?
We often hear about havingdifficulties with aims or
sometimes more descriptive aims.
Is there a way that you think abouthow your aims should be structured
or even how many aims to include,what was that process like for you?
Brielle Fer (08:21):
Luckily, I was told this before writing both of my F grants.
So I was careful about this beforestarting, because it's really
easy to fall into that trap.
You write a grant in many ways, likethe best case scenario of this beautiful
story that you could tell if all of yourhypotheses and predictions play out.
So it's tempting for that to want toread like a story, right, where you
have chapter one, where you have veryimportant discovery, number one, and that
(08:42):
leads you to important discovery two.
And it's way less fun (08:44):
first, I will find groundbreaking discovery, number
one, and then I will find completelyunrelated thing, discovery number seven,
but there's a way to do this, right?
Like you make it all about hypothesis one,but then go at that from different angles.
So my primary techniques and kindof modes of investigation have been
physiology or imaging and then behavior.
And so I've written grants usingboth of these to either look at
(09:07):
behavioral and circuit mechanisms oftwo related, but distinct behaviors.
Or I have an aim focused aroundthe physiology and the imaging
and while the other one is focusedaround the behavior and maybe
some type of circuit manipulation.
So when you structure it that way, theaims work together towards a common
goal, but are still interesting on theirown and not dependent on one another
Nathan Smith (09:28):
I completely agree with Brielle.
I think it's very importantbecause you do fall in that trap
of dependence on one another.
And that's the trap that all the PIsshould tell their trainees: Remember
these specific aims, they cannotbe dependent on one another and
then you break it down on why theycan't be dependent on one another.
And the simple fact is if one fails,then the whole grant falls apart, right?
(09:49):
And so when you break it out in thoseterms like that, build it where they're
not interdependent on one another.
So if I say, I'm going to do calciumimaging, looking at an astrocytes and
it's pertaining to certain cells, mysecond aim will not be dependent on
what the calcium imaging is doing inthat first aim, because if the calcium
engine doesn't work or something fails,then as I said before, the whole,
(10:12):
whole grant basically falls apart.
And when it gets to study section andI was putting my reviewer hat on, you
will be dinged for something like that.
Maria Ali (10:21):
Right.
I took a completely similarapproach of, I was like I mentioned
interested in molecular mechanisms.
And so for one aim, it was looking atpotential mechanisms for proliferation.
And for one aim, it was potentialmechanisms for migration.
Therefore, so if you know the gene Iwas proposing for one didn't work out,
then I could also follow up with anothergene for a completely different pathway.
(10:41):
And so it was all related to OPCsand related to tiling, but it
was, you know, different pieces ofwhat's happening in different genes.
So really highlighting that it all goesto answering a similar question about
tell of interest, but not exactly thesame thing and not in like a linear
fashion, more kind of attacking differentpieces of this process at the same time.
Lauren Ullrich (11:03):
Yeah.
That's such a grant killer.
So I'm glad that all of youthought about that before you
started working on your grants.
And so, sort of a similar vein, oneof the critiques that we see a lot in
review is that somebody is over ambitiousor less frequently under ambitious.
(11:25):
And so how do you know if you've proposedthe "right" amount of work, how do you
know that you can get it done in theamount of time that's provided for that
fellowship or post-doctoral a ward?
Nathan Smith (11:38):
This is always a struggle, right?
Uh, and I struggle with it still today.
When you write up the grant and you writeup your specific aims and everything else,
it's like, you want to show the reviewersthat you could absolutely everything.
You have all these ideas goingaround in your brain and you put
it all on paper and realistic termsis like, you cannot do everything.
So I basically my first draft, I writedown everything I, and I step away for
(12:02):
one day or two days, because you have togive yourself some time to like process,
and then you go and do some self editing.
If it's under ambitious, I will add alittle more, but if it was over ambitious.
I put my thinking cap onit's like, you know what?
I can actually move some of thisto the alternative approaches.
I don't have to put it all in.
Cause you know, someone will say thisis over in ambitious, no way this
(12:22):
person is able to achieve all of this.
And once I go through my selfedits, that's what I bring in and
pass them all along to my mentors.
Right.
And let them look at it, fresh pair eyes.
So always my advice to anyone who'swriting grants, don't be afraid
to share it or have your mentorslook over it because they have gone
through this process many times.
Right.
And so the more eyes and the more adviceyou get can help keep you from making the
(12:45):
mistake's such as under or over ambitious.
Maria Ali (12:49):
Yeah.
I completely agree with, and I love whatNathan said about, you know, putting
it in the alternative approaches.
That's definitely something I did as well.
I was really interested in thesecandidate genes that had a lot of,
you know, supporting literatureabout them, but there's always that
fear of what if this won't work!And so I also was planning on doing a
drug screen and I was talking with mymentor, which is also critical to do.
(13:11):
And she was like, you know what, let'sput that in your alternative approaches.
Let's not make an aim around a drug screenbecause it is very risky, but we can
also use it as an alternative approach.
Just say, here's just another way thatyou're going to tackle this problem
without saying, you're definitelygoing to do it as part of the aims.
And so I think another way to make sureyou're not being over or under ambitious
(13:31):
is if you are proposing a lot of differenttechniques, like I proposed a lot of like
CRISPR CAS 9 mutagenesis, which can soundintimidating and time-consuming, but
in zebra fish is actually pretty quickabout, you know, three to four months.
So I made sure to really highlightthe fact that our lab is really
good at generating those mutants.
And I've done it before and kind of reallylike giving the confidence that even
(13:52):
though this seems like a lot of work,I know exactly how long it should take.
And I feel confident that I can getit done within the scope of the time
that I was asking for the grant.
So actually talking about potentiallyhow long things might take, could
also give the reviewers someconfidence to know, okay, like this
is actually a reasonable amount ofwork to propose in the time period.
Marguerite Matthews (14:11):
That's a really great point, Maria, because
sometimes the ambitiousnesscan be measured both in time.
Like actual time that it would take youto be able to run these experiments.
Or perhaps you're having tolearn everything from scratch.
Like you don't do CRISPR in your lab.
You have to go to a whole 'notherlab to learn those techniques.
You and Brielle could potentially beproposing the same project, but it
(14:34):
may take you an easier amount of timebecause you know those techniques,
you have it available to you.
But if Brielle has to go toNathan's lab to learn those,
sort of start from scratch, itmay take her a much longer time.
So it's, I think it's really to thinkabout what you bring to the table
and how you're going to learn it.
Think about that in terms of botha timeline, but also, you know, is
(14:55):
this something that is going to be solayered that it may really take away
from this as a training opportunity?
Can this be saved for another project?
Brielle Ferguson (15:06):
Great answers, both Nathan and Maria and
follow up points by Marguerite.
I just would, re-emphasize just havingas many sets of eyes on your proposal as
possible, because I think if you've neverwritten a grant before, or you're an early
stage trainee, this can be really hardto gauge, like what's a reasonable amount
or like a feasible amount of experiments.
So for version one of my F31 grant,I had, similar to what Maria was
(15:28):
saying, I had a lot of ambitious thingsproposed, but the difference was it
was techniques that had never been donein my lab or even my department, as
soon as someone else read it, it wasimmediately flagged like this is, girl
this is too much, and they were right.
But I think like as you get moreexperience and you become a senior
graduate student or post-doc, you geta better sense of this one piece of
advice I got recently that was reallyuseful is that reviewers, when they're
(15:51):
gauging the, if the amount of work thatyou've proposed is feasible, they'll
also look at your previous productivity.
So if you've been, in my circumstance, apost-doc for a few years and you haven't
published yet, but you say you're goingto publish three papers [laughter] in the
next couple of years, like there mightbe some side eyes which are reasonable,
but I also think we know as scientiststhat productivity often is not linear,
(16:14):
especially as a graduate student and evenas a post-doc you spend some time building
up your techniques and your expertise.
And so, you may not publish anythingfor a couple of years, then you could be
super productive in like the later stages.
So I think if you can lay out a reallyclear case for how everything you've
done, like very clearly leads upto and prepares you for what you're
going to do later in your grant andyou can execute that efficiently.
(16:36):
I think that can work.
And that's, that's workedfor me in the past.
Nathan Smith (16:40):
Brielle brings about a really important point.
Uh, actually I put my reviewerhat on again and it is very
important for me'cause we lookat that productivity, right?
Cause you say you're going to do allthese things and have you published.
And I would say, especially to youngertrainees, if you have something that's
just sitting there collecting dust andyou are in a process of doing it, although
it's up to the PI, don't be afraid to putthings on bioRxiv, put things out there.
(17:03):
I mean, cause that's showingsomething that's more tangible than
saying, Oh, I have this paper andrevision, you have other reviews,
you might be skeptical of this.
It's like, Oh, they're just tellingus they have this paper and revision.
How do we know that?
Right?
The bioRxiv, although it's not peerreviewed, but at least it shows that
you have something in the pipeline.
It's not fully developed, but it's there.
Right.
(17:24):
And everyone could see it.
So you're the first person toput it out there and it's index.
So I think it's very important foryounger trainees, especially graduate
students and post-docs to embraceby our archives, especially when it
comes to the review process becauseyou have to show us productivity and
that can make or break an application.
Unfortunately.
Lauren Ullrich (17:44):
And just to follow up on that, Nathan.
We often tell applicants that, youknow publications are obviously the
best and sort of the gold standardfor productivity, but things like, you
know, conference proceedings and posterpresentations and talks can also show
evidence of productivity to the reviewers.
Nathan Smi (18:04):
That is true, but it will always come down to the papers.
They, I mean, you can, youput it all in front of us.
We were looking at your biosketch and it was like, okay,
comparing with everyone else right?
You have to show productivity inthat you were making your mark by
putting out your original research.
And I don't think anythingcould substitute for that.
Yes, it's very important to go tothe conferences and put that on their
(18:27):
poster presentations, everythingelse, that's building on things.
But for many reviewers, it willalways come down to the papers.
Marguerite Ma (18:34):
A few of you have already sort of discussed um ways to
approach some pitfalls or alternativeapproaches, especially in thinking about
avoiding being too ambitious, Can you talkabout ways that you did approach thinking
about those things, um, that would bediscussed more in the research strategy?
Nathan (18:53):
I think the alternative approach section is actually really good.
It shows the reviewers that youactually put thought into this process.
If you propose something--and no matterhow well you propose, you show the
preliminary data for it, and it's asound experimental plan that you put
together--there will always be pitholes and things that go wrong, right?
(19:13):
Because that's science in general.
Nothing ever works likewe planned it out to be.
But to use that specific section,the pitfalls and alternative
approach section to show thatyou actually thought about it.
That's why I love the section where I'mwriting the section, I put myself into
reviewer shoes and I say, you know what?
This doesn't work.
And I've looked at the literatureand everything else, especially if my
results are definitely going againstsomething that's already established,
(19:36):
that's what you're going to get hit withwhen the reviewers reviewed this,"Well,
someone else showed this and how do youno this is going to work?" But even if
you have the preliminary data showingthis was working, but I remember my
F31 showing how astrocytes can modulateplasticity in a form, but you had
people who have published papers thatshowed well, if you knock out astrocyte
calcium, astrocytes, don't do anything.
Neurons are still able to function.
(19:58):
I had that in my mind, thatliterature and I went, okay, well
then if they showed this, I'm goingto show this, this, this, this.
I'm going to test that hypothesisthat people consider, since it was
a science paper, golden standard.
And I'm going to test thisand show the reviewers.
I've done my literature search,as well, of alternatives to what
that one paper showed, right?
(20:19):
I think you have to do it in that sense.
I look at it as being a very importantsection because it shows that you
have put some thought into it.
But I've seen sections where peoplehave, they put pitfalls, but they don't
address any alternative approaches.
And that to me seemed like, well,where was the thought process?
Because I'm going into this knowing thatevery experiment proposed will not work.
Brielle Ferguson (20:41):
I would agree with everything, Nathan said.
You know how, um, like you getthe question at job interview.
And they're like, what'syour biggest flaw?
And people are like, I justwork too hard, you know?
[laughter] And it's the worst,cause that's not a negative,
but like you get the motivation.
And I think like thealternative approaches and
pitfalls can be very similar.
Like Nathan said, I think you can use itto your benefit because it shows you've
(21:03):
been thorough and thinking through likeevery single part of your proposed aims,
and you've really done the legwork tounderstand and prep for the techniques
that you're suggesting, especiallyif you haven't used them before.
I also think it's a really great time tobring in or mention your collaborators
or co-PI eyes, especially if you've beenlisted them for technical expertise on
a thing that you haven't done before.
So you can say maybe like, I'llhave this issue, but this is why
(21:24):
I have an agreement person, X whoinvented this technique or whatnot.
So I think if you're really thoughtfulin and meticulous in, in thinking through
potential outcomes, talking about howyou'll address them and like who can help
with that, especially if it's a thingyou haven't done before, it ends up not
being a pitfall, that's more a way toshow just how thoughtful you've been.
(21:47):
It can also be about your hypothesis too.
It doesn't just have tobe about your techniques.
Not working negative resultsare also interesting.
And I think as a community, we needto get better about kind of hyping
them up and giving them their love.
So spend some time saying why it turnsout to be the opposite of what you
propose, why that's also interestingand, and why that's also valuable.
Maria Ali (22:06):
Yeah.
I totally agree with everything Brielleand Nathan have said, and the only
small thing I would add is just whenyou're actually physically writing
it, like highlight pitfalls, don'tjust fold it in to your paragraphs.
Like make sure they know that thatsection is about the pitfalls.
And then the alternative approachesis like a separate section.
So that way they're really likeyou're drawing their eye to it.
(22:27):
You're not trying to be subtle aboutit, that you really are showing that you
thought about what the pitfalls are andexactly what Brielle was saying, both
technique, but also hypothesis wise.
It's not just if this techniquedoesn't work, but it's like,
no, what if the technique works?
But your hypothesis is andwhat you're thinking, how
are you going to shift gears?
And what is that going to show us?
So really being intentionalabout showing that you put the
(22:49):
thought in by highlighting it inthe text itself will really help
Nathan Smith (22:53):
that's a really good point, Maria.
Lauren Ul (22:55):
Another thing is that is very important is; very communicating
the excitement of your research question.
You know, a lot of times reviewers willnot be in your field, not be in your
specific sub- field and not be familiarwith, uh, you know, the burning questions
that are motivating researchers there.
And so how do youcommunicate in your grant?
(23:20):
Why this question is so excitingand why they should want to know
the answer just as much as you do.
I think the only way this couldbe done is your storytelling and
defend your grant and tell whyI gave the score that I gave it.
Nathan Smith (23:42):
It is all about the storytelling, but
the story is really good.
And you get me excited whileI'm reading the stories.
Like when I read that specific aims andI was like, Oh my God, this is so good.
I want to know what'sgoing to happen at the end.
And I'm going through all.
That is how we are not taughtthis in graduate school, right?
We were robots like, Oh, youhave to write a certain way.
(24:02):
But I find that the grants, people whohave taken creative writing classes,
the way they write, it's telling thestory effectively and for anyone to
understand you do get people who arenot experts in the field, that you've
chosen to do your research in and youtaken a complex story that you want and
turn into simplistic terms as possibleand creating this beautiful story.
(24:24):
That gets me so excited about it.
Brielle Ferguson (24:28):
I agree.
I would add to that.
I'm a big fan of dramatic adjectives[laughter] So these findings will answer
a fundamental question or it'll likerevolutionize our thinking about this.
I think they're useful.
Um, it feels a bit cheesy, butI think that they're useful.
Like Nathan said, you want to getpeople excited about what you're doing.
Cause if you don't sound excited,there's no way your reviewer is
(24:49):
going to want to go up to bat foryou and be excited about it for you.
So I use a lot of languagelike that in my specific games.
Then I try to circle back to that andmy research strategy, I know a lot
of people utilize text formatting todraw attention to particular points.
So like bolding things orunderlining or italicizing or
some combination of those things.
I don't do that as much, but I definitelysee the utility of it, but mostly I just
(25:10):
try to be clear that what I'm doing,because typically it's never been done
before, you know, and you can say that andsay it early and say it often the other
thing, it doesn't work for everything.
But for my research, I'm alwaystrying to bring it back to
a basic research question.
So I study attention and I study epilepsy.
And even if for some reason youdon't care about epilepsy, we all
(25:32):
need a proper functioning attention.
And so I try to really sell youon the fact that my work will
tell you about both and by betterunderstanding this basic process,
whatever it is that has tremendousimplications across disease states.
And so I think if there's a way thatyou can tie it into a basic function
that has implications for everyone, andI think that can be really impactful.
Maria Ali (25:53):
Yeah.
This was really challenging for me.
And it tends to be challenging for usbecause we study like, you know, basic
developmental biology, which we love.
We just want to know how thesecells do what they're doing, but
especially when you're applying to,you know, NIH and NINDS there seems
to always be like some sort of diseaseangle that you have to incorporate.
And I appreciate that, so what I reallytried to nail home was we studied
(26:16):
these cells a lot in disease context,but the truth is when you look at the
literature, we still don't know a lotabout just how they behave basically.
And so that was kind of my way in of,we just need to know what they're doing.
We just need to know what'sregulating these cells, how these
cells are working in the basic state.
And then we can use that to inform howthey're behaving in all of these diseases.
So it kind of is just what is thehole that you're trying to fill.
(26:39):
And just really highlight whyyou want to answer that question.
Nathan (26:43):
To bring it all back to the specific aims page is so important
because it's the first thing a reviewerwill read that's why, when you're telling
your story, you have to have the hookand you hooked me from the beginning
because the story is so compelling, thenthat makes me want to read the rest of
it right, and I get so excited aboutreading an d it's like, oh, this is great.
Oh this is wonderful.
(27:04):
I can't put this down, right.
That's important.
Marguerite Matthews (27:07):
Well, it sounds like two of the key things
are one being clear, right?
Like I shouldn't have to find the thingthat is important about this work, right?
It should be laid very clearly, veryplainly for me to see as a reviewer, but
also I'm sort of, to Brielle's point.
It should be in your voice, right?
Like this should be coming from you.
You're going to communicate whythe work you're doing is important
(27:31):
and why you are the person todo it's You writing about it.
So I caution our listeners touse other people's grants wisely.
Their format may work for theirproject and for the way they
communicate what they're doing, youhave to find the right thing for you.
If bolding works for you, because youthink that if you read nothing else, this
(27:51):
is the one thing that you should see.
That's great.
But if that's not how you feel likeyou can communicate or there's other
ways for you to do it, I say, feelfree to make this your own and not on
"prescribed" methods of doing things.
There's no right way to do this.
And I think just having thisconversation between our guests
really shows that there's a lot ofdifferent ways to approach this.
(28:15):
So you don't have to stick with onething or the next, just because someone
else did it and they get every grantthey applied to on the first try.
Lauren Ullrich (28:23):
Yes.
I have seen this, um, in actionwhere it's very clear that somebody
is copying someone else's templateand it doesn't work for them.
And even though, you know, that templategot funded, maybe it got a 10, right?
Maybe it got a perfect score,but it wasn't the template; it
was the ideas and the content.
(28:44):
And all the formatting in the worldcan't make up for something that
just doesn't jive with the waythat you need to tell your story.
I do think it is helpful to lookat other people's grants, but look
at a lot of other people's grantsbecause you'll see that everyone
approaches this very differently.
(29:04):
Despite the fact that you all [laughter]are mostly agreeing with each other,
in terms of the advice, when, whenyou look at the actual product, it can
differ quite substantially and they all,they're all successful in different ways.
Marguerite Matthews (29:15):
Yep.
I would agree.
And look at the grant as a total thing,not as a way for you to write your
own, but how do they explain this?
How do they tackle some of thepitfalls or alternative approaches?
How do they state their hypothesis andthen show how they were going to test it,
which I think can be helpful looking atit with all the context provided and not
(29:36):
just, Oh, well they put a graphic in here.
Oh, they listed these sections in thisway because not all grants look the same.
Nathan Smith (29:44):
That is true.
And Marguerite touched on somethingthat was really important at the
end of her specific aims, right?
You have this impactstatement and stuff like that.
And when she said, tell the re views, whyyou are the only person that can do this.
And for me, that was alwayshard because it's like, Oh, I
know I'm the person to do this.
And I remember several times asworking on my specific aims page.
(30:04):
When I come to that, now it does,it comes a little easier now because
you have to sell yourself, tell uswhy, why are you the person that we
should choose that's the best personto do this particular research?
And I think that's really important.
And that also goes in linewith the storyteller, right?
But you have to do it in your own voice.
I completely agree withwhat everyone said.
You just can't look atsomeone else's style.
(30:25):
Look at the entire package, lookat how they told their story.
Because I know sometimes when we write, wethink we're writing for the audience that
are experts like us in this particulararea that we're proposing to study.
And we have to get beyond that.
And when I started writing, I wrote onlyfor astrocyte people to understand, but
I took several grant writing courses.
(30:46):
And I think one of the best this,the national research network that
writing course, the P three is amazing.
And as I went through that to hone mygrant, writing skills, you learn because
you have different people and who studiedin different things, all looking at your
grant and you actually learn how to writefor a general audience that for anyone
(31:08):
who read it can understand it ratherthan always thinking in complex terms.
I, I definitely had an issuewith that for a long time.
Marguerit (31:15):
Well, Nathan, we know that [laughter] since you have written
grants and you have also reviewed them,we know you think about the reviewer.
When you write your grants[laughter] Are you thinking about the
reviewers or the study section whenyou're writing your applications?
Maria Ali (31:33):
I guess yes and no.
Like I definitely am alwaysthinking of the audience.
That's going to be reading it andtherefore it will be the reviewers
and kind of just what we've addressedand making sure it's clear, making
sure it's understandable, makingsure we're addressing pitfalls, but
I guess nothing ever really specific.
I'm not really trying to like figureout who's in that study section
and how specific it could be.
Just more trying to make it likea really strong grant overall.
(31:55):
And I just wanted to highlight something.
Nathan also mentionedcritiques in general.
I didn't say this at the beginning, butI also had to submit mine twice, like
in resubmitted and getting critiques isthe best because it tells you who the
things to focus on and what's going right.
And what's going wrong as opposed tojust feeling like you're in this void.
So you need help.
This is not a solo endeavor.
You have to get other people'sopinions, other people's eyes on
(32:17):
your writing, whether it's yourmentor or a grant writing course.
And just like be excited for critiques,you know, take them seriously, whether you
agree with them or not, but just look atit as a way to get a clearer lens on the
direction your grant should be going in.
Brielle Fe (32:31):
Yeah, I would agree.
It's similar to Maria.
I'm not as much thinking about whoSpecifically is on the review committee,
but more so just trying to craft a goodgrant with all of the things in mind that
we've talked about today, which meansthat you're always thinking of how your
audience and like what specific thingsthey'll be looking for that you're like
checking all those boxes to go back toanother point that Nathan made about
the storytelling aspect of the grantand illustrating that like you are
(32:55):
the one person who can take this on.
I think that's a bit of a balancingact for any training grants, because
in some ways you have to be like, I'mthe only person who can answer this
question, but then you also have to belike, but I need a little bit more help,
[laughter] which is a little tricky.
Um, so it's important to rememberthat you are trying to sell it, like
you're the person to do the work, butat the end of the day, it's a training
(33:16):
grant and that there are also all ofthese things that you have to learn
to be able to answer that question.
Nat (33:21):
I know when I first started writing my 31 in grad school, I was not
thinking about the reviewers at the time.
Right?
Until I finished it, submitted it tothe first time we got the critiques
back and then my mentor went through it.
Then I started putting thepieces together, right.
Because it was like, Oh, I can do this.
I can do this all alone.
I was like, no, you can't.
(33:42):
I mean, it came back, not discussed,but it went from not discussing that 14
percentile when they went back and afterI incorporated the reviewer's comments,
I think Brielle and Maria said it best.
Yes.
It hurts.
They get critiques back.
If you think you wrote it and you think itshould have been funded on the first time.
And sometimes it never happens like that.
The first day was like, if youlick your wounds and then you
(34:02):
just like, okay, now I'm gonnaput myself in the reviewer shoes.
And I see it from their point of view,be open to receive constructive criticism
and let other people look at your grants.
Also have, you know, someone whohas written a successful grant that
you're interested in applying for,ask that person to see their grant.
(34:22):
Don't be afraid.
The worst thing that could say isno, they can go to the next person
and then go to the next person.
A lesson that I learned from mymentors, if you don't advocate for
yourself, then no one else will.
Brielle Ferguson (34:33):
I would add to that, that Twitter is a really
beautiful place for things like that.
So I am writing a K award and Ijust put a call out on Twitter.
And I was like, hey, who'shas a successful application.
Or even not as successful applicationthat you'd be willing to share.
And I had like 30, 40 peopleslide in my DMS offering to
send me their applications.
So that was super, super helpful.
(34:53):
And it allowed me to see like a rangeof different types of applications
that I wouldn't have seen if Ihad just asked people in my lab
or like in my immediate network.
So, utilize Twitter.
Marguerite Matthews (35:03):
Hard agree.
Sort of back to this idea of makingthe case for you, why you are the
right person to do this proposal.
How did you all integrate the researchstrategy with your training and or
career development plans, which as youall know, but maybe our audience doesn't
(35:23):
know, you have to have some sort oftraining or career development plan for
these training awards, whether it's afellowship or a career development award.
Nathan Smith (35:33):
All right.
I can go first cause I just didthe career development for the K01.
So I got that last year, right?
And the one thing is I utilized mystrengths from what I've learned from
my graduate training, what I learnedfrom my two postdocs that I did.
One of my strengths isin vivo calcium imaging.
I could do that withmy eyes closed, right?
(35:53):
But in grad school, I alsotouched on, um, some aspects
of the field recordings, right?
And so for my K, I wanted to expand myelectrophysiology background, right?
In order to answer these questions.
I have the bulk of my skillset thatcould answer, but I still need a little
bit more piece of that electrophysiologyin terms of whole cell patch clamp.
(36:17):
But I do haveelectrophysiology background.
And so, therefore I will build on thatbackground I already have, and I spin
it from that angle and it actually work.
Brielle Ferguson (36:27):
I would agree.
I won't say that you can never goin completely another direction,
but it definitely helps if you canmake the case that it's a natural
extension from something that you'vealready been doing in grad school.
For me, it was whole cell physiologyand then behavior, but I had never
done any in vivo physiology, whichwould be a way to kind of merge
what I was seeing in my slicerecordings and behavioral experiments.
(36:49):
And so that was kind of likethe natural extension and a
way to bring it all together.
And similarly, now I'm doing a lot ofin-vivo fiber photometry and I'm looking
at bulk calcium signaling while animalsare performing a particular behavior.
What I want to do moving forwardis look at the single cell calcium
imaging while animals are doingcertain types of behaviors.
(37:09):
So that's another natural extension.
Like, it definitely will requirea lot of training, but it's not
completely removed from techniquesthat have already been doing.
And so I think that helps a lot.
And then this is another time again, tolike pull in people who can help you.
So like your co-PIs or your collaborators,definitely you can tie them in, in
your specific aims and in your likealternative approaches, if you might
(37:31):
have some trouble, you can be like, I'veenlisted this person who's going to help.
And then you can also bring them in,in your training and say, they're the
foremost expert on this in the field.
And this is why they're going toprovide me this critical training
without which I can't complete thisproject or move towards independence
or whatever your particular goalis based on what stage you're at.
Lauren Ullrich (37:57):
Thank you all for sharing your wisdom today.
And can I ask each of youfor one last piece of parting
advice for future applicants?
Maria Ali (38:04):
Yeah.
My biggest advice I would say isstart early, like way earlier than
you think, especially if it's yourfirst time, it's intimidating.
There's a lot of pieces to it.
It's confusing.
I think even just technically like allof the different parts that have to go
in there, so make sure you're startingearly to know what you're going to need.
And please, please, please make sureyou're working with your mentor.
(38:26):
Working with whoever is submitting grants.
I know we have a specific person whois a grant specialist at my university.
Find out if you have those,because those are the people that
are going to really help you.
And they'll also know who else submittedgrants like we mentioned before.
And so just start early and get help.
Please don't ever feel likeyou have to do this alone.
Brielle (38:44):
I would say in addition to that, don't be afraid of rejection.
It's coming [laughter] and it's okay.
You know, um, I think a lot of us,we probably come from a background
of being like overachievers.
And so we're not used to thingsbeing just rejected or not discussed.
Um, and that's a big lessonfor all of us, but, but it's
okay and it's going to happen.
(39:05):
It's inevitable.
Each rejection and critiquewill, will make you stronger.
And in no way is an indictment onyou or you as a scientist or any like
reflection on your character, who you are.
It's going to happen sometimesand each of those rejections will
definitely make you stronger.
So try to use them as toolsto become a better scientist.
And don't take it personally.
Nathan (39:27):
I concur with everything that's been said by Maria and Brielle.
And I think the last point is, I harpedon this earlier, advocate for yourself.
If you're applying for somethinggo out and ask people who
have successfully submitted.
And don't be afraid to askfor help because you can't
be an island unto yourself.
It does take a lot.
And so ask for help and beopen to advice and critiques.
Lauren Ullrich (39:51):
And Marguerite, what's your advice?
Marguerite Matthew (39:53):
I would say, be comfortable with just proposing
whatever's in your brain, right?
Like before you submit it,you're going to get feedback.
Hopefully you just don't throw this intothe NIH void without getting any feedback,
but it's okay to be over ambitious inyour first draft and you can cut it back.
(40:15):
It's okay to think this isyour opportunity to get your
research questions out on paper.
It's almost like a document fullof brainstorming because that's
exactly what your pitfalls are.
That's what youralternative approaches are.
This is a chance for you to reallyjust be creative as you need to and
think about in your wildest dreams,what is the way that you would like
(40:36):
to answer some of these questions?
And it's okay to cut back or saveit for another project or think
about doing it in your post-doc.
Don't be so worried about justgetting things out for the first time.
It may not be perfect.
Your ideas may not all the waybe solidified, but that's okay.
That's how you get better.
That's how you strengthenyourself as a scientist, as a
researcher and as an investigator.
(40:59):
So that would be my advice.
What about you, Lauren?
Lauren Ullrich (41:02):
I think, you know, I'll sort of piggyback on
that and say, you want to proposeresearch that you are excited about.
I think sometimes applicants try tothink like, well, what does NIH want?
Or what do reviewers want?
I think those are good things tothink about, but ultimately if
(41:25):
you're not excited about the scienceor things that you're learning,
it comes across in your grant.
And I think Maria, you had a greatexample of you're doing really basic
science and it's interesting to youand you know, maybe zebra fish, aren't
interesting to everyone, but if it'sinteresting to you, then you can figure
(41:47):
out, Why is it interesting to me?
And put that in your grant theneveryone, you know, the reviewers
will say like, Oh, actually Inever thought about that before.
And that's a great feeling as areviewer to feel like you're learning
something new while you're reading agrant, it's almost better than reading
a grant that's squarely in your field.
So that--I think that would be my advice.
(42:15):
So that's all we have time fortoday on Building Up the Nerve.
Thank you to our guests thisweek for sharing their expertise.
And thank you to NINDS programdirector, Dr. Bob Riddle, who
composed our theme song and music.
We'll see you next time.
When we talk about thebiographical sketch.
Marguerite Matthews (42:32):
And you can find past episodes of this podcast
and many other grant applicationresources on the web at NINDS.nih.gov.
Please email us your questionsat nindsnervepod@nih.gov.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast onApple Podcasts or your podcast app of
choice, so you don't miss an episode.
(42:53):
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to the National Institute of Neurological Disorder's and
Stroke's Building Up the Nerve, a podcastfor neuroscience trainees that takes
you through the components of a grantapplication with successful awardees.
We know that applying for NIH fundingcan be daunting, but we're here to help.
It's our job.
Marguerite Matthews (00:22):
Hello, I'm Marguerite Matthews, a scientific
program manager at NINDS.
Lauren Ullrich (00:25):
And I'm Lauren Ullrich, a program director at NINDS.
And we're your hosts today.
Marguerite Mat (00:32):
This episode, we will talk about the specific aims and
research strategy of your application.
We'll focus on how to craft a specificaims page, how to choose the right scope
for your research strategy and how tointegrate that research strategy with
your training or career development plans.
Lauren Ullri (00:49):
And of course, our disclaimer still applies
talk about may only be relevant for NINDS.
So if you're applying to a different NIHInstitute or center, it's always best
to check with them about their policies.
Marguerite Matth (01:06):
And our guests today are Maria Ali, Dr. Brielle
Ferguson and Dr. Nathan Smith.
So let's get started with introductions.
Maria Ali (01:15):
Hi, I'm Maria.
I'm a current PhD candidate at theUniversity of Virginia in the Kucenas lab.
In the Kucenas lab, we use zebrafish as a vertebrate model to
study all things glia, basically.
So I study all the progenitorcells or OPCs, which are a group
of glial cells in the centralnervous system that migrate rapidly
(01:37):
throughout the brain and spinal cord.
We're able to observe this migratingor tiling during development.
However, we don't know much abouthow this is regulated molecularly.
So for my PhD, I've been investigatingvarious molecular mechanisms surrounding
tiling, including proliferation,migration, and contact-mediated repulsion.
(01:59):
So I actually receivedan F31 for this work.
And one of my hobbies outsideof work is I love watching
horror movies with my friends.
Laure (02:08):
Oh, what's your favorite?
Maria Ali (02:11):
Um, honestly don't really have a favorite.
I just watched Hereditary, whichwas really good and Midsommer,
which are by the same director andthey're creepy, but not too much.
I just really liked thestory of both of them.
Lauren Ullrich (02:23):
Nice.
Brielle Ferguson (02:24):
Hi everyone, I'm Brielle.
I'm a postdoc at Stanfordworking in John Hugenard's lab.
In the Hugenard lab, we study absenceepilepsy where, instead of the classic
convulsive seizures that many peopleare more familiar with, patients have
these brief periods of unconsciousness,where they lose consciousness and
motor function, and this can happenhundreds of times throughout the day.
Outside of when they're having thoseseizures they also have attention
(02:47):
impairments, which can make itreally difficult for them to perform
at a level that's comparable totheir peers, whether that's in the
classroom, in their interpersonalrelationships or even on the job force.
So my project is trying to understandwhy do they have those attention
impairments in the first place, andcan we figure out how to treat them?
So to do so, I use a genetic mousemodel of absence epilepsy, where we
(03:09):
have mice that have a mutation in agene that's also present in patients
and the mice have both absenceseizures and attention impairments.
Then I train the mice on automatedattention assays, and I either record
activity in their brain or I manipulateactivity in their brain to see how it
affects their attention performance.
My goal is to identify patternsof activity that are associated
(03:33):
with successful performance.
And with the goal that by identifyingthese, I can use those to better develop
treatments that can work both in absence,epilepsy, and disorders with attention
impairments across disease states.
I've received an F31 and an F32 andsupplements for R01s both during my
(03:54):
graduate work and my postdoctoral work.
I think it's important to notethat I applied for my F31,
three times before I got it.
So keep that in mind, definitelybe willing to try again.
It's very likely that you won't getit the first time and that's okay.
That was a tough lesson for me, but onceI realized that, it made it a lot better.
You go into it, knowing thatthat's a part of the process.
(04:15):
Hobbies and passions outside ofwork, I love doing yoga and I
love plants, I have about 40.
They make me happy and there'ssomething I can tend to inside,
and if that's an activity thatstill works during the pandemic.
Marguerite Matthews (04:28):
What's your favorite type of yoga?
I like a Vinyasa yoga.
I can tell you my leastfavorite type is hot yoga.
I hate sweating.
[Laughter] But just likethe Vinyasa or powerflow.
Yeah, I enjoy Vinyasa also.
Nathan (04:42):
Hello, I'm Nathan Smith.
I'm an assistant professor at GeorgeWashington University School of Medicine
and health sciences, and also a principalinvestigator at Children's National.
My lab that is neuro-glial interactionsbetween astrocytes, microglia and neurons
on the normal physiological conditions.
And then look for breakdowns incommunication between the three major cell
types in the brain, in order to understanddisease pathologies, such as attention
(05:04):
deficit disorder, epilepsy, depression.
As a graduate student, I appliedfor an F 31 the first time I
applied, it was not discussed.
The second time I applied, it was funded.
I applied for a F32 as apostdoctoral candidate.
It got a score, but it wasn't funded.
And now as a principal investigatorand an assistant professor,
I applied for an NIH KO1.
(05:25):
The first time I applied it wasn'tfunded, the second time it was funded.
And on the side, when I'm notdoing research or science, I have
a black belt in mixed martialarts, so I do martial arts.
Lauren Ullrich (05:35):
Wow.
Marguerite Matthew (05:36):
Can you tell us what got you into martial arts?
Nat (05:41):
I started doing some karate in college and everything else, but when
I got to graduate school, I needed anoutlet for, you know, all the stress
and I took up more and martial arts andthroughout graduate school, right before
I graduated, I transitioned over to myblack belt and it really did help a lot.
Let me tell ya.
[Laughter]
Lauren Ullrich (06:01):
so this episode, we are talking about
specific aims and research strategy.
And one of the questions that we geta lot is, you know, is there anything
different about the way that you write orconceptualize specific aims when you're
thinking about a fellowship or careerdevelopment award versus a research grant?
Marguerite (06:25):
And for those of our listeners who may have never applied for
a research grant, who may have seen itin your PIs grants, there's one page it's
kind of a summary page of what you planon doing and why you're going to do it.
Nathan Sm (06:38):
I took a stab at this and that since I've done the research
grant and the career development grants,uh, and I would say, I don't think
there is a difference, because themajor component of those proposals are
research, and basically you structureyour specific aims exactly the same.
And so there's no difference in ifit's a career development award or a
research grant, uh, you still have to,you're addressing a problem and you're
(07:01):
proposing what that problem is in thatspecific aims to get the reviewers to
say, okay, let me read more of thisto see if this is interesting, right?
In this particular sense.
I don't think there's a difference.
I think the only thing I wouldadd is when I was writing my fellowship,
a lot of the advice that I got was to makesure within your research grant, you were
kind of highlighting the techniques thatyou were going to learn, finding a balance
(07:23):
between the techniques that you alreadyknow, but also making it clear that a
lot of your aims were going to teachyou new skills or help you acquire new
skills in the lab and kind of showcasingwhy you need a training fellowship.
I think that was the onlydifference, the advice that I got.
Nathan Smith (07:39):
I think you could take both steps to do this, right?
For the K01, I structured it justlike I would do a research question.
As I moved from the specific aims tothe major proposal, I did discuss more
of how the specific techniques I wantedto learn during the career development
will help me reach my ultimate goal.
So I think you can do both,in other words, I should say.
Marguerite Matthews (08:01):
So In thinking about writing your aims.
How did you approach that?
We often hear about havingdifficulties with aims or
sometimes more descriptive aims.
Is there a way that you think abouthow your aims should be structured
or even how many aims to include,what was that process like for you?
Brielle Fer (08:21):
Luckily, I was told this before writing both of my F grants.
So I was careful about this beforestarting, because it's really
easy to fall into that trap.
You write a grant in many ways, likethe best case scenario of this beautiful
story that you could tell if all of yourhypotheses and predictions play out.
So it's tempting for that to want toread like a story, right, where you
have chapter one, where you have veryimportant discovery, number one, and that
(08:42):
leads you to important discovery two.
And it's way less fun (08:44):
first, I will find groundbreaking discovery, number
one, and then I will find completelyunrelated thing, discovery number seven,
but there's a way to do this, right?
Like you make it all about hypothesis one,but then go at that from different angles.
So my primary techniques and kindof modes of investigation have been
physiology or imaging and then behavior.
And so I've written grants usingboth of these to either look at
(09:07):
behavioral and circuit mechanisms oftwo related, but distinct behaviors.
Or I have an aim focused aroundthe physiology and the imaging
and while the other one is focusedaround the behavior and maybe
some type of circuit manipulation.
So when you structure it that way, theaims work together towards a common
goal, but are still interesting on theirown and not dependent on one another
Nathan Smith (09:28):
I completely agree with Brielle.
I think it's very importantbecause you do fall in that trap
of dependence on one another.
And that's the trap that all the PIsshould tell their trainees: Remember
these specific aims, they cannotbe dependent on one another and
then you break it down on why theycan't be dependent on one another.
And the simple fact is if one fails,then the whole grant falls apart, right?
(09:49):
And so when you break it out in thoseterms like that, build it where they're
not interdependent on one another.
So if I say, I'm going to do calciumimaging, looking at an astrocytes and
it's pertaining to certain cells, mysecond aim will not be dependent on
what the calcium imaging is doing inthat first aim, because if the calcium
engine doesn't work or something fails,then as I said before, the whole,
(10:12):
whole grant basically falls apart.
And when it gets to study section andI was putting my reviewer hat on, you
will be dinged for something like that.
Maria Ali (10:21):
Right.
I took a completely similarapproach of, I was like I mentioned
interested in molecular mechanisms.
And so for one aim, it was looking atpotential mechanisms for proliferation.
And for one aim, it was potentialmechanisms for migration.
Therefore, so if you know the gene Iwas proposing for one didn't work out,
then I could also follow up with anothergene for a completely different pathway.
(10:41):
And so it was all related to OPCsand related to tiling, but it
was, you know, different pieces ofwhat's happening in different genes.
So really highlighting that it all goesto answering a similar question about
tell of interest, but not exactly thesame thing and not in like a linear
fashion, more kind of attacking differentpieces of this process at the same time.
Lauren Ullrich (11:03):
Yeah.
That's such a grant killer.
So I'm glad that all of youthought about that before you
started working on your grants.
And so, sort of a similar vein, oneof the critiques that we see a lot in
review is that somebody is over ambitiousor less frequently under ambitious.
(11:25):
And so how do you know if you've proposedthe "right" amount of work, how do you
know that you can get it done in theamount of time that's provided for that
fellowship or post-doctoral a ward?
Nathan Smith (11:38):
This is always a struggle, right?
Uh, and I struggle with it still today.
When you write up the grant and you writeup your specific aims and everything else,
it's like, you want to show the reviewersthat you could absolutely everything.
You have all these ideas goingaround in your brain and you put
it all on paper and realistic termsis like, you cannot do everything.
So I basically my first draft, I writedown everything I, and I step away for
(12:02):
one day or two days, because you have togive yourself some time to like process,
and then you go and do some self editing.
If it's under ambitious, I will add alittle more, but if it was over ambitious.
I put my thinking cap onit's like, you know what?
I can actually move some of thisto the alternative approaches.
I don't have to put it all in.
Cause you know, someone will say thisis over in ambitious, no way this
(12:22):
person is able to achieve all of this.
And once I go through my selfedits, that's what I bring in and
pass them all along to my mentors.
Right.
And let them look at it, fresh pair eyes.
So always my advice to anyone who'swriting grants, don't be afraid
to share it or have your mentorslook over it because they have gone
through this process many times.
Right.
And so the more eyes and the more adviceyou get can help keep you from making the
(12:45):
mistake's such as under or over ambitious.
Maria Ali (12:49):
Yeah.
I completely agree with, and I love whatNathan said about, you know, putting
it in the alternative approaches.
That's definitely something I did as well.
I was really interested in thesecandidate genes that had a lot of,
you know, supporting literatureabout them, but there's always that
fear of what if this won't work!And so I also was planning on doing a
drug screen and I was talking with mymentor, which is also critical to do.
(13:11):
And she was like, you know what, let'sput that in your alternative approaches.
Let's not make an aim around a drug screenbecause it is very risky, but we can
also use it as an alternative approach.
Just say, here's just another way thatyou're going to tackle this problem
without saying, you're definitelygoing to do it as part of the aims.
And so I think another way to make sureyou're not being over or under ambitious
(13:31):
is if you are proposing a lot of differenttechniques, like I proposed a lot of like
CRISPR CAS 9 mutagenesis, which can soundintimidating and time-consuming, but
in zebra fish is actually pretty quickabout, you know, three to four months.
So I made sure to really highlightthe fact that our lab is really
good at generating those mutants.
And I've done it before and kind of reallylike giving the confidence that even
(13:52):
though this seems like a lot of work,I know exactly how long it should take.
And I feel confident that I can getit done within the scope of the time
that I was asking for the grant.
So actually talking about potentiallyhow long things might take, could
also give the reviewers someconfidence to know, okay, like this
is actually a reasonable amount ofwork to propose in the time period.
Marguerite Matthews (14:11):
That's a really great point, Maria, because
sometimes the ambitiousnesscan be measured both in time.
Like actual time that it would take youto be able to run these experiments.
Or perhaps you're having tolearn everything from scratch.
Like you don't do CRISPR in your lab.
You have to go to a whole 'notherlab to learn those techniques.
You and Brielle could potentially beproposing the same project, but it
(14:34):
may take you an easier amount of timebecause you know those techniques,
you have it available to you.
But if Brielle has to go toNathan's lab to learn those,
sort of start from scratch, itmay take her a much longer time.
So it's, I think it's really to thinkabout what you bring to the table
and how you're going to learn it.
Think about that in terms of botha timeline, but also, you know, is
(14:55):
this something that is going to be solayered that it may really take away
from this as a training opportunity?
Can this be saved for another project?
Brielle Ferguson (15:06):
Great answers, both Nathan and Maria and
follow up points by Marguerite.
I just would, re-emphasize just havingas many sets of eyes on your proposal as
possible, because I think if you've neverwritten a grant before, or you're an early
stage trainee, this can be really hardto gauge, like what's a reasonable amount
or like a feasible amount of experiments.
So for version one of my F31 grant,I had, similar to what Maria was
(15:28):
saying, I had a lot of ambitious thingsproposed, but the difference was it
was techniques that had never been donein my lab or even my department, as
soon as someone else read it, it wasimmediately flagged like this is, girl
this is too much, and they were right.
But I think like as you get moreexperience and you become a senior
graduate student or post-doc, you geta better sense of this one piece of
advice I got recently that was reallyuseful is that reviewers, when they're
(15:51):
gauging the, if the amount of work thatyou've proposed is feasible, they'll
also look at your previous productivity.
So if you've been, in my circumstance, apost-doc for a few years and you haven't
published yet, but you say you're goingto publish three papers [laughter] in the
next couple of years, like there mightbe some side eyes which are reasonable,
but I also think we know as scientiststhat productivity often is not linear,
(16:14):
especially as a graduate student and evenas a post-doc you spend some time building
up your techniques and your expertise.
And so, you may not publish anythingfor a couple of years, then you could be
super productive in like the later stages.
So I think if you can lay out a reallyclear case for how everything you've
done, like very clearly leads upto and prepares you for what you're
going to do later in your grant andyou can execute that efficiently.
(16:36):
I think that can work.
And that's, that's workedfor me in the past.
Nathan Smith (16:40):
Brielle brings about a really important point.
Uh, actually I put my reviewerhat on again and it is very
important for me'cause we lookat that productivity, right?
Cause you say you're going to do allthese things and have you published.
And I would say, especially to youngertrainees, if you have something that's
just sitting there collecting dust andyou are in a process of doing it, although
it's up to the PI, don't be afraid to putthings on bioRxiv, put things out there.
(17:03):
I mean, cause that's showingsomething that's more tangible than
saying, Oh, I have this paper andrevision, you have other reviews,
you might be skeptical of this.
It's like, Oh, they're just tellingus they have this paper and revision.
How do we know that?
Right?
The bioRxiv, although it's not peerreviewed, but at least it shows that
you have something in the pipeline.
It's not fully developed, but it's there.
Right.
(17:24):
And everyone could see it.
So you're the first person toput it out there and it's index.
So I think it's very important foryounger trainees, especially graduate
students and post-docs to embraceby our archives, especially when it
comes to the review process becauseyou have to show us productivity and
that can make or break an application.
Unfortunately.
Lauren Ullrich (17:44):
And just to follow up on that, Nathan.
We often tell applicants that, youknow publications are obviously the
best and sort of the gold standardfor productivity, but things like, you
know, conference proceedings and posterpresentations and talks can also show
evidence of productivity to the reviewers.
Nathan Smi (18:04):
That is true, but it will always come down to the papers.
They, I mean, you can, youput it all in front of us.
We were looking at your biosketch and it was like, okay,
comparing with everyone else right?
You have to show productivity inthat you were making your mark by
putting out your original research.
And I don't think anythingcould substitute for that.
Yes, it's very important to go tothe conferences and put that on their
(18:27):
poster presentations, everythingelse, that's building on things.
But for many reviewers, it willalways come down to the papers.
Marguerite Ma (18:34):
A few of you have already sort of discussed um ways to
approach some pitfalls or alternativeapproaches, especially in thinking about
avoiding being too ambitious, Can you talkabout ways that you did approach thinking
about those things, um, that would bediscussed more in the research strategy?
Nathan (18:53):
I think the alternative approach section is actually really good.
It shows the reviewers that youactually put thought into this process.
If you propose something--and no matterhow well you propose, you show the
preliminary data for it, and it's asound experimental plan that you put
together--there will always be pitholes and things that go wrong, right?
(19:13):
Because that's science in general.
Nothing ever works likewe planned it out to be.
But to use that specific section,the pitfalls and alternative
approach section to show thatyou actually thought about it.
That's why I love the section where I'mwriting the section, I put myself into
reviewer shoes and I say, you know what?
This doesn't work.
And I've looked at the literatureand everything else, especially if my
results are definitely going againstsomething that's already established,
(19:36):
that's what you're going to get hit withwhen the reviewers reviewed this,"Well,
someone else showed this and how do youno this is going to work?" But even if
you have the preliminary data showingthis was working, but I remember my
F31 showing how astrocytes can modulateplasticity in a form, but you had
people who have published papers thatshowed well, if you knock out astrocyte
calcium, astrocytes, don't do anything.
Neurons are still able to function.
(19:58):
I had that in my mind, thatliterature and I went, okay, well
then if they showed this, I'm goingto show this, this, this, this.
I'm going to test that hypothesisthat people consider, since it was
a science paper, golden standard.
And I'm going to test thisand show the reviewers.
I've done my literature search,as well, of alternatives to what
that one paper showed, right?
(20:19):
I think you have to do it in that sense.
I look at it as being a very importantsection because it shows that you
have put some thought into it.
But I've seen sections where peoplehave, they put pitfalls, but they don't
address any alternative approaches.
And that to me seemed like, well,where was the thought process?
Because I'm going into this knowing thatevery experiment proposed will not work.
Brielle Ferguson (20:41):
I would agree with everything, Nathan said.
You know how, um, like you getthe question at job interview.
And they're like, what'syour biggest flaw?
And people are like, I justwork too hard, you know?
[laughter] And it's the worst,cause that's not a negative,
but like you get the motivation.
And I think like thealternative approaches and
pitfalls can be very similar.
Like Nathan said, I think you can use itto your benefit because it shows you've
(21:03):
been thorough and thinking through likeevery single part of your proposed aims,
and you've really done the legwork tounderstand and prep for the techniques
that you're suggesting, especiallyif you haven't used them before.
I also think it's a really great time tobring in or mention your collaborators
or co-PI eyes, especially if you've beenlisted them for technical expertise on
a thing that you haven't done before.
So you can say maybe like, I'llhave this issue, but this is why
(21:24):
I have an agreement person, X whoinvented this technique or whatnot.
So I think if you're really thoughtfulin and meticulous in, in thinking through
potential outcomes, talking about howyou'll address them and like who can help
with that, especially if it's a thingyou haven't done before, it ends up not
being a pitfall, that's more a way toshow just how thoughtful you've been.
(21:47):
It can also be about your hypothesis too.
It doesn't just have tobe about your techniques.
Not working negative resultsare also interesting.
And I think as a community, we needto get better about kind of hyping
them up and giving them their love.
So spend some time saying why it turnsout to be the opposite of what you
propose, why that's also interestingand, and why that's also valuable.
Maria Ali (22:06):
Yeah.
I totally agree with everything Brielleand Nathan have said, and the only
small thing I would add is just whenyou're actually physically writing
it, like highlight pitfalls, don'tjust fold it in to your paragraphs.
Like make sure they know that thatsection is about the pitfalls.
And then the alternative approachesis like a separate section.
So that way they're really likeyou're drawing their eye to it.
(22:27):
You're not trying to be subtle aboutit, that you really are showing that you
thought about what the pitfalls are andexactly what Brielle was saying, both
technique, but also hypothesis wise.
It's not just if this techniquedoesn't work, but it's like,
no, what if the technique works?
But your hypothesis is andwhat you're thinking, how
are you going to shift gears?
And what is that going to show us?
So really being intentionalabout showing that you put the
(22:49):
thought in by highlighting it inthe text itself will really help
Nathan Smith (22:53):
that's a really good point, Maria.
Lauren Ul (22:55):
Another thing is that is very important is; very communicating
the excitement of your research question.
You know, a lot of times reviewers willnot be in your field, not be in your
specific sub- field and not be familiarwith, uh, you know, the burning questions
that are motivating researchers there.
And so how do youcommunicate in your grant?
(23:20):
Why this question is so excitingand why they should want to know
the answer just as much as you do.
I think the only way this couldbe done is your storytelling and
defend your grant and tell whyI gave the score that I gave it.
Nathan Smith (23:42):
It is all about the storytelling, but
the story is really good.
And you get me excited whileI'm reading the stories.
Like when I read that specific aims andI was like, Oh my God, this is so good.
I want to know what'sgoing to happen at the end.
And I'm going through all.
That is how we are not taughtthis in graduate school, right?
We were robots like, Oh, youhave to write a certain way.
(24:02):
But I find that the grants, people whohave taken creative writing classes,
the way they write, it's telling thestory effectively and for anyone to
understand you do get people who arenot experts in the field, that you've
chosen to do your research in and youtaken a complex story that you want and
turn into simplistic terms as possibleand creating this beautiful story.
(24:24):
That gets me so excited about it.
Brielle Ferguson (24:28):
I agree.
I would add to that.
I'm a big fan of dramatic adjectives[laughter] So these findings will answer
a fundamental question or it'll likerevolutionize our thinking about this.
I think they're useful.
Um, it feels a bit cheesy, butI think that they're useful.
Like Nathan said, you want to getpeople excited about what you're doing.
Cause if you don't sound excited,there's no way your reviewer is
(24:49):
going to want to go up to bat foryou and be excited about it for you.
So I use a lot of languagelike that in my specific games.
Then I try to circle back to that andmy research strategy, I know a lot
of people utilize text formatting todraw attention to particular points.
So like bolding things orunderlining or italicizing or
some combination of those things.
I don't do that as much, but I definitelysee the utility of it, but mostly I just
(25:10):
try to be clear that what I'm doing,because typically it's never been done
before, you know, and you can say that andsay it early and say it often the other
thing, it doesn't work for everything.
But for my research, I'm alwaystrying to bring it back to
a basic research question.
So I study attention and I study epilepsy.
And even if for some reason youdon't care about epilepsy, we all
(25:32):
need a proper functioning attention.
And so I try to really sell youon the fact that my work will
tell you about both and by betterunderstanding this basic process,
whatever it is that has tremendousimplications across disease states.
And so I think if there's a way thatyou can tie it into a basic function
that has implications for everyone, andI think that can be really impactful.
Maria Ali (25:53):
Yeah.
This was really challenging for me.
And it tends to be challenging for usbecause we study like, you know, basic
developmental biology, which we love.
We just want to know how thesecells do what they're doing, but
especially when you're applying to,you know, NIH and NINDS there seems
to always be like some sort of diseaseangle that you have to incorporate.
And I appreciate that, so what I reallytried to nail home was we studied
(26:16):
these cells a lot in disease context,but the truth is when you look at the
literature, we still don't know a lotabout just how they behave basically.
And so that was kind of my way in of,we just need to know what they're doing.
We just need to know what'sregulating these cells, how these
cells are working in the basic state.
And then we can use that to inform howthey're behaving in all of these diseases.
So it kind of is just what is thehole that you're trying to fill.
(26:39):
And just really highlight whyyou want to answer that question.
Nathan (26:43):
To bring it all back to the specific aims page is so important
because it's the first thing a reviewerwill read that's why, when you're telling
your story, you have to have the hookand you hooked me from the beginning
because the story is so compelling, thenthat makes me want to read the rest of
it right, and I get so excited aboutreading an d it's like, oh, this is great.
Oh this is wonderful.
(27:04):
I can't put this down, right.
That's important.
Marguerite Matthews (27:07):
Well, it sounds like two of the key things
are one being clear, right?
Like I shouldn't have to find the thingthat is important about this work, right?
It should be laid very clearly, veryplainly for me to see as a reviewer, but
also I'm sort of, to Brielle's point.
It should be in your voice, right?
Like this should be coming from you.
You're going to communicate whythe work you're doing is important
(27:31):
and why you are the person todo it's You writing about it.
So I caution our listeners touse other people's grants wisely.
Their format may work for theirproject and for the way they
communicate what they're doing, youhave to find the right thing for you.
If bolding works for you, because youthink that if you read nothing else, this
(27:51):
is the one thing that you should see.
That's great.
But if that's not how you feel likeyou can communicate or there's other
ways for you to do it, I say, feelfree to make this your own and not on
"prescribed" methods of doing things.
There's no right way to do this.
And I think just having thisconversation between our guests
really shows that there's a lot ofdifferent ways to approach this.
(28:15):
So you don't have to stick with onething or the next, just because someone
else did it and they get every grantthey applied to on the first try.
Lauren Ullrich (28:23):
Yes.
I have seen this, um, in actionwhere it's very clear that somebody
is copying someone else's templateand it doesn't work for them.
And even though, you know, that templategot funded, maybe it got a 10, right?
Maybe it got a perfect score,but it wasn't the template; it
was the ideas and the content.
(28:44):
And all the formatting in the worldcan't make up for something that
just doesn't jive with the waythat you need to tell your story.
I do think it is helpful to lookat other people's grants, but look
at a lot of other people's grantsbecause you'll see that everyone
approaches this very differently.
(29:04):
Despite the fact that you all [laughter]are mostly agreeing with each other,
in terms of the advice, when, whenyou look at the actual product, it can
differ quite substantially and they all,they're all successful in different ways.
Marguerite Matthews (29:15):
Yep.
I would agree.
And look at the grant as a total thing,not as a way for you to write your
own, but how do they explain this?
How do they tackle some of thepitfalls or alternative approaches?
How do they state their hypothesis andthen show how they were going to test it,
which I think can be helpful looking atit with all the context provided and not
(29:36):
just, Oh, well they put a graphic in here.
Oh, they listed these sections in thisway because not all grants look the same.
Nathan Smith (29:44):
That is true.
And Marguerite touched on somethingthat was really important at the
end of her specific aims, right?
You have this impactstatement and stuff like that.
And when she said, tell the re views, whyyou are the only person that can do this.
And for me, that was alwayshard because it's like, Oh, I
know I'm the person to do this.
And I remember several times asworking on my specific aims page.
(30:04):
When I come to that, now it does,it comes a little easier now because
you have to sell yourself, tell uswhy, why are you the person that we
should choose that's the best personto do this particular research?
And I think that's really important.
And that also goes in linewith the storyteller, right?
But you have to do it in your own voice.
I completely agree withwhat everyone said.
You just can't look atsomeone else's style.
(30:25):
Look at the entire package, lookat how they told their story.
Because I know sometimes when we write, wethink we're writing for the audience that
are experts like us in this particulararea that we're proposing to study.
And we have to get beyond that.
And when I started writing, I wrote onlyfor astrocyte people to understand, but
I took several grant writing courses.
(30:46):
And I think one of the best this,the national research network that
writing course, the P three is amazing.
And as I went through that to hone mygrant, writing skills, you learn because
you have different people and who studiedin different things, all looking at your
grant and you actually learn how to writefor a general audience that for anyone
(31:08):
who read it can understand it ratherthan always thinking in complex terms.
I, I definitely had an issuewith that for a long time.
Marguerit (31:15):
Well, Nathan, we know that [laughter] since you have written
grants and you have also reviewed them,we know you think about the reviewer.
When you write your grants[laughter] Are you thinking about the
reviewers or the study section whenyou're writing your applications?
Maria Ali (31:33):
I guess yes and no.
Like I definitely am alwaysthinking of the audience.
That's going to be reading it andtherefore it will be the reviewers
and kind of just what we've addressedand making sure it's clear, making
sure it's understandable, makingsure we're addressing pitfalls, but
I guess nothing ever really specific.
I'm not really trying to like figureout who's in that study section
and how specific it could be.
Just more trying to make it likea really strong grant overall.
(31:55):
And I just wanted to highlight something.
Nathan also mentionedcritiques in general.
I didn't say this at the beginning, butI also had to submit mine twice, like
in resubmitted and getting critiques isthe best because it tells you who the
things to focus on and what's going right.
And what's going wrong as opposed tojust feeling like you're in this void.
So you need help.
This is not a solo endeavor.
You have to get other people'sopinions, other people's eyes on
(32:17):
your writing, whether it's yourmentor or a grant writing course.
And just like be excited for critiques,you know, take them seriously, whether you
agree with them or not, but just look atit as a way to get a clearer lens on the
direction your grant should be going in.
Brielle Fe (32:31):
Yeah, I would agree.
It's similar to Maria.
I'm not as much thinking about whoSpecifically is on the review committee,
but more so just trying to craft a goodgrant with all of the things in mind that
we've talked about today, which meansthat you're always thinking of how your
audience and like what specific thingsthey'll be looking for that you're like
checking all those boxes to go back toanother point that Nathan made about
the storytelling aspect of the grantand illustrating that like you are
(32:55):
the one person who can take this on.
I think that's a bit of a balancingact for any training grants, because
in some ways you have to be like, I'mthe only person who can answer this
question, but then you also have to belike, but I need a little bit more help,
[laughter] which is a little tricky.
Um, so it's important to rememberthat you are trying to sell it, like
you're the person to do the work, butat the end of the day, it's a training
(33:16):
grant and that there are also all ofthese things that you have to learn
to be able to answer that question.
Nat (33:21):
I know when I first started writing my 31 in grad school, I was not
thinking about the reviewers at the time.
Right?
Until I finished it, submitted it tothe first time we got the critiques
back and then my mentor went through it.
Then I started putting thepieces together, right.
Because it was like, Oh, I can do this.
I can do this all alone.
I was like, no, you can't.
(33:42):
I mean, it came back, not discussed,but it went from not discussing that 14
percentile when they went back and afterI incorporated the reviewer's comments,
I think Brielle and Maria said it best.
Yes.
It hurts.
They get critiques back.
If you think you wrote it and you think itshould have been funded on the first time.
And sometimes it never happens like that.
The first day was like, if youlick your wounds and then you
(34:02):
just like, okay, now I'm gonnaput myself in the reviewer shoes.
And I see it from their point of view,be open to receive constructive criticism
and let other people look at your grants.
Also have, you know, someone whohas written a successful grant that
you're interested in applying for,ask that person to see their grant.
(34:22):
Don't be afraid.
The worst thing that could say isno, they can go to the next person
and then go to the next person.
A lesson that I learned from mymentors, if you don't advocate for
yourself, then no one else will.
Brielle Ferguson (34:33):
I would add to that, that Twitter is a really
beautiful place for things like that.
So I am writing a K award and Ijust put a call out on Twitter.
And I was like, hey, who'shas a successful application.
Or even not as successful applicationthat you'd be willing to share.
And I had like 30, 40 peopleslide in my DMS offering to
send me their applications.
So that was super, super helpful.
(34:53):
And it allowed me to see like a rangeof different types of applications
that I wouldn't have seen if Ihad just asked people in my lab
or like in my immediate network.
So, utilize Twitter.
Marguerite Matthews (35:03):
Hard agree.
Sort of back to this idea of makingthe case for you, why you are the
right person to do this proposal.
How did you all integrate the researchstrategy with your training and or
career development plans, which as youall know, but maybe our audience doesn't
(35:23):
know, you have to have some sort oftraining or career development plan for
these training awards, whether it's afellowship or a career development award.
Nathan Smith (35:33):
All right.
I can go first cause I just didthe career development for the K01.
So I got that last year, right?
And the one thing is I utilized mystrengths from what I've learned from
my graduate training, what I learnedfrom my two postdocs that I did.
One of my strengths isin vivo calcium imaging.
I could do that withmy eyes closed, right?
(35:53):
But in grad school, I alsotouched on, um, some aspects
of the field recordings, right?
And so for my K, I wanted to expand myelectrophysiology background, right?
In order to answer these questions.
I have the bulk of my skillset thatcould answer, but I still need a little
bit more piece of that electrophysiologyin terms of whole cell patch clamp.
(36:17):
But I do haveelectrophysiology background.
And so, therefore I will build on thatbackground I already have, and I spin
it from that angle and it actually work.
Brielle Ferguson (36:27):
I would agree.
I won't say that you can never goin completely another direction,
but it definitely helps if you canmake the case that it's a natural
extension from something that you'vealready been doing in grad school.
For me, it was whole cell physiologyand then behavior, but I had never
done any in vivo physiology, whichwould be a way to kind of merge
what I was seeing in my slicerecordings and behavioral experiments.
(36:49):
And so that was kind of likethe natural extension and a
way to bring it all together.
And similarly, now I'm doing a lot ofin-vivo fiber photometry and I'm looking
at bulk calcium signaling while animalsare performing a particular behavior.
What I want to do moving forwardis look at the single cell calcium
imaging while animals are doingcertain types of behaviors.
(37:09):
So that's another natural extension.
Like, it definitely will requirea lot of training, but it's not
completely removed from techniquesthat have already been doing.
And so I think that helps a lot.
And then this is another time again, tolike pull in people who can help you.
So like your co-PIs or your collaborators,definitely you can tie them in, in
your specific aims and in your likealternative approaches, if you might
(37:31):
have some trouble, you can be like, I'veenlisted this person who's going to help.
And then you can also bring them in,in your training and say, they're the
foremost expert on this in the field.
And this is why they're going toprovide me this critical training
without which I can't complete thisproject or move towards independence
or whatever your particular goalis based on what stage you're at.
Lauren Ullrich (37:57):
Thank you all for sharing your wisdom today.
And can I ask each of youfor one last piece of parting
advice for future applicants?
Maria Ali (38:04):
Yeah.
My biggest advice I would say isstart early, like way earlier than
you think, especially if it's yourfirst time, it's intimidating.
There's a lot of pieces to it.
It's confusing.
I think even just technically like allof the different parts that have to go
in there, so make sure you're startingearly to know what you're going to need.
And please, please, please make sureyou're working with your mentor.
(38:26):
Working with whoever is submitting grants.
I know we have a specific person whois a grant specialist at my university.
Find out if you have those,because those are the people that
are going to really help you.
And they'll also know who else submittedgrants like we mentioned before.
And so just start early and get help.
Please don't ever feel likeyou have to do this alone.
Brielle (38:44):
I would say in addition to that, don't be afraid of rejection.
It's coming [laughter] and it's okay.
You know, um, I think a lot of us,we probably come from a background
of being like overachievers.
And so we're not used to thingsbeing just rejected or not discussed.
Um, and that's a big lessonfor all of us, but, but it's
okay and it's going to happen.
(39:05):
It's inevitable.
Each rejection and critiquewill, will make you stronger.
And in no way is an indictment onyou or you as a scientist or any like
reflection on your character, who you are.
It's going to happen sometimesand each of those rejections will
definitely make you stronger.
So try to use them as toolsto become a better scientist.
And don't take it personally.
Nathan (39:27):
I concur with everything that's been said by Maria and Brielle.
And I think the last point is, I harpedon this earlier, advocate for yourself.
If you're applying for somethinggo out and ask people who
have successfully submitted.
And don't be afraid to askfor help because you can't
be an island unto yourself.
It does take a lot.
And so ask for help and beopen to advice and critiques.
Lauren Ullrich (39:51):
And Marguerite, what's your advice?
Marguerite Matthew (39:53):
I would say, be comfortable with just proposing
whatever's in your brain, right?
Like before you submit it,you're going to get feedback.
Hopefully you just don't throw this intothe NIH void without getting any feedback,
but it's okay to be over ambitious inyour first draft and you can cut it back.
(40:15):
It's okay to think this isyour opportunity to get your
research questions out on paper.
It's almost like a document fullof brainstorming because that's
exactly what your pitfalls are.
That's what youralternative approaches are.
This is a chance for you to reallyjust be creative as you need to and
think about in your wildest dreams,what is the way that you would like
(40:36):
to answer some of these questions?
And it's okay to cut back or saveit for another project or think
about doing it in your post-doc.
Don't be so worried about justgetting things out for the first time.
It may not be perfect.
Your ideas may not all the waybe solidified, but that's okay.
That's how you get better.
That's how you strengthenyourself as a scientist, as a
researcher and as an investigator.
(40:59):
So that would be my advice.
What about you, Lauren?
Lauren Ullrich (41:02):
I think, you know, I'll sort of piggyback on
that and say, you want to proposeresearch that you are excited about.
I think sometimes applicants try tothink like, well, what does NIH want?
Or what do reviewers want?
I think those are good things tothink about, but ultimately if
(41:25):
you're not excited about the scienceor things that you're learning,
it comes across in your grant.
And I think Maria, you had a greatexample of you're doing really basic
science and it's interesting to youand you know, maybe zebra fish, aren't
interesting to everyone, but if it'sinteresting to you, then you can figure
(41:47):
out, Why is it interesting to me?
And put that in your grant theneveryone, you know, the reviewers
will say like, Oh, actually Inever thought about that before.
And that's a great feeling as areviewer to feel like you're learning
something new while you're reading agrant, it's almost better than reading
a grant that's squarely in your field.
So that--I think that would be my advice.
(42:15):
So that's all we have time fortoday on Building Up the Nerve.
Thank you to our guests thisweek for sharing their expertise.
And thank you to NINDS programdirector, Dr. Bob Riddle, who
composed our theme song and music.
We'll see you next time.
When we talk about thebiographical sketch.
Marguerite Matthews (42:32):
And you can find past episodes of this podcast
and many other grant applicationresources on the web at NINDS.nih.gov.
Please email us your questionsat nindsnervepod@nih.gov.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast onApple Podcasts or your podcast app of
choice, so you don't miss an episode.
(42:53):
We'll see you next time.
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