Thread by @cd_fuller

Ok, quick thread on our newly awarded R01...

So, in 2016, @MDAndersonNews, @Elekta and @Philips investigators decided to put together an Academic-Industrial Partnership grant, which is a cool @NIHFunding mechanism for developing new technology, based on a prototype #MRLinAc device we’d installed in 2015.

So, we spent a year writing the R01 application, on how we could combine functional imaging and adaptive planing for head and neck cancer met with awesome POs from @theNCI & @NIBIBgov who helped w feedback on Spec Aims, & submitted A0 in early 2017

Then, waiting...

So, in late 2017 we get a reasonable score (28th %ile/38) we’re encouraged, and revise and add data..

So, we get back summary sheets, rush to add data and responses and resubmit A1 within weeks after panel meeting...

Then...

And we get 16th%ile/30!! We are so stoked! Surely we will be funded!

Spirits are high! We are not under pay line but still possibly fundable!

But we are not funded...The institute pay line was 14% that cycle.

[incidentally, POs were phenomenal, as original application was routed to @NIBIBgov; when it became apparent we wouldn’t meet their pay line, they moved grant to @theNCI PO portfolio to try keep it alive for funding #NIHPOsareAwesome].

But emboldened, we modify aims, and send to a similar mechanism as an A0 (so this is grant iteration #3)..

Sadly, we messed up an appendix and app was admin withdrawn 2/2 an improper attachment (that would have been allowed under previous regs)

But...because I was a Study Section referee, I got to add 2 weeks to the deadline...allowing us to fix the appendix issue!!

Then...

Results are not good: triaged.

We almost give up...

But a discussion with the PO convinces is there is still hope, and the referee comments are fixable.

So, redo aims *a ton*, add data, add awesome collaborators and resubmit, this time to @NIDCR after taking with their awesome POs (in addition to @theNCI & @NIBIBgov). This is a new A0 (grant iteration #5)

And results are good! 18th%ile/33...possibly fundable, but not under pay line. PO advises that while we wait to see if this A0 (iteration #5) is funded, we should resubmit and see if A1 gets lower score...we take advice.

A1 (grant version 6) is ruthlessly triaged by referee 3 (other refs love it). Ref 3 hammers us only on minor points of approach.

We are about to give up entirely when...

The PO tells us the A0 is considred for funding, and we have 2 pages to respond to referee 3’s approach critiques. I spend emotion on these 2 pages than on any 2 pages I have written.

And then, finally, PO emails us yesterday to say we are awarded!!

So, here’s my take-always from a 3-year, 6 grant application process:

Do not quit; revise, improve, and resubmit.

The @NIHFunding POs are incredibly helpful guides; reach out to them early, and often.

Study sections/panels have a certain degree of randomness and often do not make sense; an application can go from fundable to triaged w *1* out of step referee.

It is always referee 3 who trashes you, but you have to pick it up and revise/resub

Sometimes the grant you are about to give up on is the one that gets funded.

Finally, write grants with collaborators who are people you like, (if not friends)...it really helps to have a great team for the funding slog when you are trying to do something exciting in science together.

Whoops realized I got dates wrong! We started in 2015 for the 1st app in 2016...wow 4 years went fast.

[Aside: This is the same #MRLinAc @JJWLagendijk & @bwraaymakers developed @UMCUtrecht; I’d seen @UMCUtrecht develop technologies w academic/industry grants funded by @NWO_Science and was inspired to do something similar in US]