My checkered history with NIH grant proposals: 1) First proposal was for a K award. Study section said I already had enough papers that I should instead apply for R award. Low agreement among reviewers evaluating the same NIH grant applications pnas.org/content/early/…
2) So I applied for an R award the following year. Study section said I did not have enough of a track record yet and should have applied for a K award.
3) Then applied for correlative studies for a proposed trial. Study section said trial was unlikely to accrue. Trial did accrue, correlative studies were done with non-NIH funding.
4) Fast forward to 2008. Became convinced #MDS cells had #spliceosome machinery. R proposal to study spliceosome in MDS first triaged, then scored poorly. Study section said highly implausible such a core component of cell machinery could be mutated without killing the cell.
4B) In 2011, Japanese group showed #splicing mutations actually most common class of mutation in MDS. By then I'd closed my lab and switched to a more clinical job.
5) In 2011, had a core project on NCI #SPORE leukemia proposal. Study section was critical of drug and proposed study plan, grant not funded. My first patient subsequently treated with proposed drug (19 y/o with relapsed/refractory leukemia) achieved a complete remission.
6) At that point decided I should have taken my mentor's advice in 1999 and never applied for anything from the NIH! But with encouragement of colleagues joined SPORE proposal in 2016 which finally got funded in late 2017. First NIH funding at age 46...
Thanks for all the nice comments! Grateful for all the private foundations that have supported our efforts - Evans, @aamdsif, Mayo, Predolin, @lionsclubs, @LLSusa, etc etc so the work went on.(And I did once have NIH LRP - enormously helpful during lean junior faculty years! 😊)
