Nih specific aims
Grant anatomy of a specific aims e date: aprit 09, 2015category: scientific grant writingauthor: michelle s. Specific aims section is the most vital part of any nih grant this section, you must quickly gain the reviewers’ trust and confidence while simultaneously convincing them that your work is important to must also convey that you and your team are the best people to complete the work you’ve these reasons, the specific aims can be one of the most difficult sections to this article, we provide some tips on structure, content, and organization of your specific aims specific aims section is central to your grant ore, it should be the first section you may think of your specific aims page as an abbreviated version of the full having this page written and well-thought out, the remainder of grant application will be easier to introductory this paragraph, your goal should be to introduce your research subject to the reviewers and quickly capture their paragraph should describe the significant gap in knowledge that directly relates to the critical need the funding entity deals is critical to know your funding entity’s mission statement and ensure the critical need you are trying to fill fits well within its should include the following information:First sentence/hook: in this sentence, briefly describe what your proposal will be y, this sentence should convey a sense of importance or urgency to your n quickly what your research topic is and why it is critical that you conduct the research (i. Is known: state what is currently known in the specific part should not be very long (3-5 sentences) but it should ground the reader in the subject of your e the reader with only the necessary details to understand why you are proposing the er to be concise and focused on only the key in knowledge: the gap in knowledge is the piece of information that is not y state the gap in knowledge that needs to be that your research will fill this gap using the funding that you are the example specific aims page we use here (see figure 1), the most critical piece of the gap in knowledge has been technique can be useful to emphasize the most important words or phrases in your specific aims you choose to use italics or underline to emphasize key points, remember to do so e of italics or underlining can be critical need: the critical need is the knowledge (hypothesis-driven), technique, new compound, or treatment that you propose to need is important to increase medically relevant knowledge or improve health critical need is the reason your proposal should be ize the significance of the problem you are trying to onally, it should be clear in this paragraph that your research proposes the next logical step to advance the is an example of an introductory paragraph:Viruses are thought to be involved in 15% to 20% of human cancers worldwide, thus providing critical tools to reveal common mechanisms involved in human the etiologic agent of adult t cell leukemia/lymphoma (atll), human t cell leukemia virus type i (htlv-1) is just such a -1 encodes a potent oncoprotein, tax, which regulates important cellular pathways including gene expression, proliferation, apoptosis, and the years, tax has proven to be a valuable model system in which to interrogate cellular processes, revealing pathways and mechanisms that play important roles in cellular gh the tax oncoprotein has been shown to transform cells in culture and to induce tumors in a variety of transgenic mouse models, the mechanism by which tax transforms cells is not well understood. However, it should include the following components:Long-term goal: this is your overarching research e you are asking for support from a particular funding entity, it is important to ensure that your long-term goals align with the mission of your funding your wording general in this sentence—you are stating your long-term plans, and the reviewers understand that the specifics may be subject to esis and proposal objectives: your proposal should contain both of these components, depending on the long-term your central hypothesis clearly, specifically, and with simple want to demonstrate to the reviewers that you have a hypothesis-driven proposal that is be how your project addresses the critical need, and clearly state the proposed general, avoid vague hypotheses because it will be unclear to the reviewers what you expect to determine with the proposed ale: explain how you arrived at your central hypothesis (for example, using past studies and published literature). But it is important to keep it is an example of a second paragraph:To solve this problem we will develop an innovative mouse model system in which to study tax tumorigenesis using targeting vectors containing wild-type or mutant tax genes that are silenced by a preceding floxed stop vectors will be knocked in to the rosa26 locus of recipient mice by crossing these mice with lck-cre mice, the stop cassette will be specifically excised in developing thymocytes where the lck promoter is active, allowing conditional expression of wild-type or mutant tax proteins in t cells, the natural target of htlv-1 feasibility of our proposed mouse model is supported by the fact that lck-tax transgenic mice have been developed and produce a leukemia that closely resembles , targeting of tax expression in cells in which the lck promoter is active is expected to produce a similar disease in our our improved model system, insertion into the rosa26 locus will eliminate random integration sites and standardize gene copy number resulting in consistent levels of wild-type and mutant tax protein key: long-term goal proposal objective rationale hypothesis 2. These variations highlight the flexibility you have while creating a strong specific aims this section, you will describe briefly each of the aims you will use to test your y, the aims should be related, but not dependent, upon each you do this, the failure of one aim (or an unexpected result from one aim) does not negatively influence any other aim or prevent the completion of the other 2-4 sentences each, you should describe the experimental approach and how each aim will help answer your larger hypothesis. Additionally, these tips may help you to formulate your aims sections:Give your aim an active title that clearly states the objective in relationship to the e a brief summary of the experimental approach and anticipated outcomes for each you have room, you may wish to include a sub-hypothesis (the small portion of the overall hypothesis) and a small description of the pay-off of each aim.
Including these is helpful to creating the impression that each aim is valuable, testable, and independent of the make it easier for the reviewers to clearly read and understand each aim, it is often helpful to use headings and/or bullets to delineate each specific is an example of the aims section:Aim 1 will establish an innovative mouse model for htlv-1 tax ing vectors containing silenced wild-type or mutant tax genes will be knocked in to the rosa26 locus of c57bl/6 mice will then be crossed with homozygous lck-cre mice, thereby excising the stop cassette and generating mice that express wild-type or mutant tax proteins specifically in t 2 will examine the effect of mutations that disable specific biological functions of tax on tax-mediated can bind to and regulate the activity of members of the srf, creb, nf-kb and pbm protein families, each of which has been implicated in established in aim 1 will allow us to compare for the first time the tumorigenic potential of wild-type and mutant tax proteins in an effort to identify pathways that are required for tax key: aim title experimental strategy outcome or 3. Sections of the paragraph have been color coded to highlight each critical the active voice in the titles of each aim and the use of boldface text to highlight the final summary final paragraph of the specific aims is often overlooked, but it is vital for the impact of your of your specific aims page as an hourglass, where the wide parts represent the general information and global significance, and the narrow parts are the fine you end with the aims section (above) you will end on fine details and a narrow scope. The example given here is a strong example, but it is not specific aims page is unique to the ore, there is a lot of flexibility in how these elements can be arranged and emphasized. Consider the novelty, innovation, and significant elements of your proposal as you decide how to organize this page; however, a great specific aims page will possess all of these order presented here has an ideal logic for a majority of proposals, so try applying it to your proposal to see how it works for ific writing you like our articles, try our workshops! Here to return to our scientific editing article & contracts > apply for a grant > prepare your specific aimsafter you have decided the area of research to pursue, start thinking about your planned experiments by first drafting objectives, known in nih lingo as specific sure you can complete your aims within the typical timeframe for your chosen funding opportunity announcement (foa). Start broadly with an emphasis on significance, and then focus on generating experiments with clear endpoints reviewers can readily you could design a project around two to four specific aims, many people create ng your application to a few specific aims keeps you clear of the very common mistake of being overly ambitious. It's much better to think small and propose less than to do the are good aims and there are poor aims.
Then the question becomes “does a cause b or non-b,” so make sure the “non-b” outcomes make sense based on both your central hypothesis and preliminary r common type of specific aim is descriptive. Such descriptive findings should usually be part of your preliminary data, not part of your your topic, your specific aims should build on your previous applications and morefind examples of specific aims used by a gestalt between aims and gh it may seem an early stage to think about specific experiments, cost of those experiments, needed expertise, and resources, these variables go hand-in-hand with picking a project that is both impactful and the project is not feasible, you will need to rethink your experiments or even your specific e you have several items to juggle, we recommend using the following iterative process:Staying in your niche, propose a project ses a highly significant innovative—can create new e draft specific aims and one or more fy a potential funding institute and a study section that would likely embrace your whether you have access to all needed resources and sure the project is not growing too big for your targeted time and you hit a roadblock, go back to the failure point and revise your specific aims and one or more ng high level, ask yourself what objectives you could achieve within the timeframe of the grant. Your goal is to create aims that are achievable in four to five years and have clear endpoints your reviewers can readily people write their specific aims first and then develop a hypothesis; others do the reverse—use the approach that works best for can create one hypothesis for the entire application or one for each specific etically speaking . Because that's what reviewers expect and what anchors your different specific aims to a common theme, not just a common field of research. Following a central hypothesis also keeps you focused with both writing the proposal and actually doing the research if the grant is people write their specific aims first and then develop a hypothesis; others do the reverse. Strong hypothesis should be well-focused and testable by the specific aims and you create your hypothesis, go back and take stock again of your prospective reviewers and their level of interest in light of your draft aims and your specific we show you how to put to the test your draft objectives—specific aims—you have planned for your step provides a check of your aims in light of the study section you identified and advice on presenting your aims if you propose highly innovative assessing your specific aims by taking a hard look at the significance and innovation of your planned my reviewers see my proposed project as tackling an important problem in a significant field? They view my specific aims as capable of opening up new discoveries in my field?
They view my specific aims as likely to exert a significant influence on the research field(s) involved? Don't assume others, including your reviewers, will consider a research area to have the same priority that you discuss your draft aims with colleagues who aren’t in your field. If they can understand your project and get excited about it, you have a better chance your reviewers will as is particularly useful to have your application reviewed by a colleague who has been successful in getting nih funding, or better yet, has served on an nih study this point, you may want to go back and reconsider your specific aims so you can be as certain as possible that the committee will appreciate your research innovation, where art thou? Paradigm-shifting and outside-the-box concepts can still lend themselves to focused hypotheses that can help guide the crafting of solid specific aims. Of johns hopkins university school of medicine and bloomberg school of public you scrutinize your specific aims, make sure your reviewers will view them to be reasonably close to the scientific your proposal challenges commonly held beliefs, be sure that you include sufficient evidence in your preliminary data to convince the reviewers that these beliefs may not be scientifically valid. Novelty alone will not help you if the proposed studies are not feasible given the available time, funds, and resources to do the applications and more get an idea of how investigators who wrote outstanding applications balanced these us step: prepare your applicationnext step: outline your ist: iterative approach to application planning g in your niche, propose a project ses a highly significant innovative—can create new e three specific aims and one or more testable (usually) three specific aims you can achieve in four or five sure they have clear endpoints reviewers can readily a hypothesis (or hypotheses) that is well focused and testable by the aims and fy a potential funding institute and a study section that would likely embrace your whether you have access to all needed resources and sure the project is not growing too big for your targeted time and you hit a roadblock, go back to the failure point and revise your plans. The tips should not replace your organization's internal guidance, specific advice provided by nih program or grants management staff, or instructions found in the funding opportunity announcement or application guide.
If the aims of the project are achieved, how will scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice be improved? How will successful completion of the aims change the concepts, methods, technologies, treatments, services, or preventative interventions that drive this field? Are the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses well-reasoned and appropriate to accomplish the specific aims of the project? Nrsa fellowship award, career development award, and specific funding opportunity announcements (foas) may have different or additional special review criteria. Applicants should look in the funding opportunity announcement to which they are applying and familiarize themselves with the review criteria by which their application will be onal review applicable for the project proposed, reviewers will consider each of the following items, but will not give scores for these items and should not consider them in providing an overall impact ations from foreign ce sharing tication of key biological and/or chemical and period : certain funding opportunity announcements (foas) that are published in the nih guide for grants and contracts may list additional elements under each of the above criteria related to the specific requirement of the more about how applications are reviewed and scored on our peer review process ch resources, institutional support and available ient information must be included to demonstrate to reviewers and nih staff the high quality of the pd/pi, the co-investigators, available research resources, and the applicant institution and its support of the ants should clearly state that they have the appropriate resources to conduct the research, such as adequate equipment and laboratory space. Be specific and informative, and avoid rk major diagrams, figures and tables, and include appropriate legends, to assist the reviewers to understand complex information. Allow someone with fresh eyes read your content, check your punctuation, and give you feedback on whether the content t your colleagues or mentors review a first draft of your specific aims early in the process.
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Our preliminary data show that: (1) the human fetus can mount a vigorous immune response to exogenous antigens;4 (2) the human fetal immune response to exogenous antigens can be actively suppressed by antigen-specific tregs;4,5 (3) fetal tregs are derived from a fetal-specific lineage of t cells; (4) fetal and adult hspcs give rise to distinct populations of t cells; and (5) fetal hspc-derived t cells show an enhanced ability to during thymic maturation and upon exposure to foreign antigens in vitro. The above hypothesis will be tested via the following specific aims, which are specific and independent of one another:Specific aim 1. If so, these modalities aimed at changing this ratio more towards the adult lineage at birth may provide benefit to a substantial number of goal, data, hypothesis and specific aims will be the central focal points for your entire proposal. Final step to avoid grant the trump budget means for grant success: stop stating, start your research with dod success: start small, think online ials of proposal ials of proposal step: apply your all scheduled workshops & most important part of a medical research application is the specific aims page.
