Office of Research Celebrates 20 Years
For most of its 20-year history, the LSU School of Medicine's Office of Research and Dr. Wayne Backes have been synonymous. However, in recent years, with the support of Dean Nelson, the Office has expanded in both personnel and services. Today, the Office oversees three core strategies that foster research productivity within the School of Medicine: funding opportunities, mentoring, and resources.
“Dr. Rob Marier created my position in 2001 in response to a research retreat that was held in 1999. We started off with a single program, bridge grants, but today we offer so much more,” Dr. Backes, Associate Dean for Research, said.
Recent additions to the Office include Coordinator for Research Jessica Guillory Riche and the appointments of Dr. Lucio Miele as Assistant Dean for Translational Research and Dr. Peter Winsauer to Assistant Dean for Basic Research. Dr. Winsauer has served as chair of the study sections for the internal grant programs for many years, and continues to provide his expertise in the area of basic science research. Dr. Miele is a wealth of information for clinical and translational research projects, and is involved in numerous projects related to cancer research. Both Drs. Winsauer and Miele have been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Funding opportunities still include the bridge grants, which provide up to $75,000 per year in funding for up to two years for previously funded faculty in the process of securing a renewal grant.
“You never want to see a lab shut down while the researcher is applying for new funding. These internal grants are an essential link to maintain research productivity until the next federal grant begins,” said Dr. Backes.
The Office also funds pilot grants, which provide up to $75,000 for one year of funding for scientists with new ideas, allowing them to collect enough data to submit to NIH.
The Clinical Research Grants Program is a newer funding opportunity designed for clinicians to explore research areas that may not yet be sufficiently evolved to develop a competitive extramural proposal.
“We found that clinicians writing grants typically had research in a more nascent stage than basic researchers, so we developed the Clinical Science Research Grants program,” said Dr. Backes. Clinicians write a grant and then internal clinical faculty will review and make suggestions to increase its chance of success. The original author then receives the internal reviewers' evaluation, as well as an offer to discuss with Dr. Winsauer how to improve the proposal's funding chances. This might include collaborating with a basic researcher or providing grant writing assistance.
Other funding opportunities include a resident research grant program.
“Residents and their mentors have ideas for research projects and need funding to conduct the research. The resident can submit a proposal for rapid review and request up to $5,000, which is made up of $2,500 from the sponsoring department and matched by the Dean with an additional $2,500,” Dr. Backes said. “It's a very quick review.”
The Office has also funded COVID-19 proposals.
“We funded seven COVID-19 research proposals with the goal of taking data from pilot stage and allowing our investigators to submit to NIH. These are both for basic and clinical science,” said Dr. Backes.
“The research proposals we see are strong. The ones we choose to fund are going through a standard review process. The goal is to raise the excellence of the submissions to get extramural funding,” he said.
Dr. Backes noted that there are some joint funding opportunities, too, including grants through Pennington Biomedical Research Center and LACaTS. There is also funding available for those who have bioinformatics pilot projects in partnership with Dr. Chindo Hicks. The Office also created a laboratory supplements program, which provides a $10,000 supplement to faculty who are awarded $500,000 or more of directs costs through a grant.
The mentoring opportunities are as extensive as the funding opportunities.
The Research Cafe' (https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/research/research_cafe.aspx) is a series of workshops, classes and seminars on topics crucial to an academic research career. Subjects include an overview of the Office's programs and resources, grant writing, publishing research, and identifying funding sources. The School of Medicine Research Office is currently in the process of re-organizing some of these sessions, which also include workshops on biosketch and personal statement preparation, budget development, writing strong aims and goals, and a mock study session to give participants an idea of what happens during the grant review process.
“The goal of all of these workshops is to prepare the strongest proposals possible,” he said.
Another mentoring service provided is the grant proposal pre-review. Faculty can submit a draft of their proposal four weeks before submission and the Office will secure an experienced faculty member to review the draft within two weeks. Faculty can engage with the Office as early in the process as they wish, even beginning with the initial research idea, to gain additional input.
“We also provide a mentoring program for junior basic and clinical faculty to ensure the success of our new faculty,” he said. “Faculty are an investment, and we are investing in them.”
To participate in the junior faculty mentoring program (https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/research/faculty_mentoring_program.aspx), the individual submits their CV and a short form describing their career goals, which is then reviewed by the Mentor Selection Committee, who identifies a mentoring team that best matches their career development goals.
Finally, the Office hosts several resources that faculty can access, including the Faculty Interest Database (https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/faculty_interests/SearchResearch.aspx). This searchable database identifies faculty, their expertise and interests, and available equipment and other resources. The Office also maintains a list of all faculty grants (https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/research/grant_choice_year.aspx). Links to all required compliance policies and forms can be found on the website, including for animal care and use, biosafety, IRB, material transfer agreements, and other necessary policies.
”Our intention is to create a ‘one-stop-shop' for our faculty,” Dr. Backes said.
The most recent resource has been the addition of the LSUHSC-UMC COVID Biorepository (https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/research/covid_19_research.aspx) to maintain specimens for current and future use in research.
To see the extensive list of funding opportunities, mentoring and resources that the Office offers, visit their website at https://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/research/.