Grant Writing Colloquia 2011

1. Grant Writing Colloquia 2011 • NSF/External Postdoctoral Fellowship. • Cell Biol. Final Paper in the form of a grant proposal • ALL BMS 1st Years • These are important !(Your Career and BMS)

2. Grant Writing Colloquia • Max: • Overview of a grant proposal • (or ‘How to Write a Good One’) • Graduate Students: • How to Navigate the next two months for NSF/Cell Biol. • Timeline • Letters of Reference/Transcripts • The Website • Unique Criterion for NSF (Criterion) • The Essay • How to choose topics • How to involve a PI or mentor • About other outside grants

3. Anatomy of a Grant • Front Pages (Forms) • Personal Information (form) • OR • Biosketch (see at right) • Essays • Letters of Recommendation • The proposal (research)

4. How to Write a (Fundable) Grant Proposal • The Triage Process • Most grants fail on basic ‘triage killers’: • No Questions being asked (just a series of ideas) • Grossly overambitious • Me too. • Start with good, interesting, important, addressable, novel QUESTION. Bounce it off colleagues, fellows, PIs. Consider approaches. Find collaborators. Check out web to see if someone is already doing this. • Write to the instructions/RFA! What does the funding source want? Following slides adapted from J. Boothroyd

5. Avoid being Triaged: • Spell check and proof read • Keep within borders • Make spacious and lovely! Leave spaces between paragraphs—cut if necessary. Add BOLD for key phrases (goal, hypothesis, aim). Avoid appearances of ‘Blah Blah Blah Blah’. (reviewers mood is more important than your every thought). • Don’t be overambitious. • Have the grant read by someone who knows and someone who doesn’t know the area • No waffle words (might, could, should). Only “will”, “do”. If conditionals are tempting, explain “will do if…” • Avoid semi-waffle words (characterize) in primary goals. • BIOLOGY, BIOLOGY, BIOLOGY. Why is this interesting?

6. The Form of a Proposal—In Brief. • Title (Short and sweet) • Abstract (Just the basics) • Specific Aims (QUESTION or GOAL--NOT Hypothesis since answer might be NO after $100K taxpayer money). • Background (Give ONLY what is needed to appreciate the context) • (Preliminary Results)—Ideal but not for these grants —It IS doable by ME) • Experimental Plan (Specific aim verbatim—Use headings to describe each set of expts. And give sufficient detail so it is clear you know your stuff) • Budget (not NSF)

7. The Form of a Proposal—The Abstract. • Abstract (Just the basics) • One paragraph total—address each question in one-two sentences: • What is the problem you are addressing? • What is the current state of the art? • What approach will you take? • Why is this important?

8. The Form of a Proposal—Specific Aims. • QUESTION or GOAL--NOT Proving the Hypothesis since answer might be NO after $100K taxpayer money. • Clear Thread through whole grant—ideally ONE medium question and several related subquestions. • Aims must not be dependent (e.g. Aim 2: Using genes isolated in Aim 1, we will…) but FLOW between aims is important and helps background stay concise. • Give enough details to easily understand what will be done. Aims should embody the WHOLE grant—the rest is fluff. • Have a guaranteed and useful/interesting outcome. • Provide back-up strategies/aims where needed

9. The Form of a Proposal—Background. • Give ONLY what is needed to appreciate the context. • What are the questions that are outstanding? • Very good to BOLDFACE your HYPOTHESIS. Make it standout in the field of words. • Cite key literature but citing reviews is fine—use references by name once or twice. • Make it interesting—and remember that brevity is better than boring.

10. The Form of a Proposal—Experimental Plan • Specific aims verbatim—Use headings to describe each set of expts. • Have a ‘rationale’ or ‘approach’ section that is virtually stand-alone • Then an experimental detail section for each • Explain choices—how many will you choose, what criteria will you use. • Have backup strategies—explain why the one you propose is the best but suggest alternative and when you might resort to this. • CONCLUSION: Of the form: “In this way we will determine…” or “Through the experiments described above, I expect to determine…” ONE OF THESE PER AIM AT LEAST.

11. Real-Life: The NSF can only be 2 pages Background 2-3 paragraphs I hypothesize that engagement of MHC class II on a DC upon initial contact with T cells results in activation of PI3K and induction of Rho family GTPases, leading to actin polymerization toward a T cell, SMAC formation, and T cell activation. Experimental Plan Aim 1: Determine the effect of Rho-family GTPase deficiency on actin polarization and SMAC formation during DC-T cell interactions. Details including: What cells will be treated how? What will be assayed? What to expect? If the approach in 1 doesn’t work , what else might we do? Aim 2: Identify upstream activators of Rho family GTPases upon DC-T cell contact. Details including: What cells will be treated how? What will be assayed? What to expect? If the approach in 1 doesn’t work , what else might we do?