Line By Line to the Bottom Line

The MSTP Professional Development Course

BY DAVID NAUEN, G3 Twelve Mud-Phuds, ten weeks, two professors, one objective: to attain the skill of writing fundable grants. Program Director Clayton Wiley realized that while training in medicine (which in many cases results in an M.D.) and in science (which has been known to lead to a Ph.D.) will equip program graduates with many of the essential tools for productive careers as physician scientists, this may not be enough. After the comparatively comfy cocoon of graduate school is left behind, only the oxygen that fuels scientific work cold cash will enable hard-won knowledge and skills to be put to work in expanding what is known. With the ability to attract funding the dream of running a lab, a project, or an epidemiological study becomes realizable. But when, between the clinical skills assessment and the comprehensive exam, is that skill to be learned? The new Professional Development Course, held at the beginning of the second year of graduate school, is the answer. Convening the newly-minted G2s, erstwhile medical school classmates, from the summers stats-laden, thesis labchoosing, project-defining dual campus diaspora, Dr. Wiley and his neuropathologist colleague Dr. Charlene Chu M.D.Ph.D. lay out why funding matters students having trouble getting the concept are docked a stipend check and how funding works, taking NIH Institutes and RO1 proposals as a model. Other sources of funding, including NSF and private foundations, are discussed. The first few of the weekly sessions are didactic, as a means of rapidly conveying which institutes fund what types of projects, where the funding comes from, and how it is allocated. Students are also exposed to examples of good and not-so-good R01 and National Research Service Award (NRSA) proposals, and get their first look at pink sheets (official feedback). After these sessions students start to develop their own proposal, structured as an NRSA, the RO1 equivalent for doctoral trainees. At this time the class is split in two, roughly along students interests, with the cell, molecular, pathology, immuno and pharm researchers (the gel runners) in one camp and the engineering, computational biology, statistics/epi students (the number crunchers) in the other. The split is made so that each student, using his or her expertise, can read through the drafts written by every other student in the group and provide useful feedback, as well as develop the corresponding section of his or her own proposal. The philosophy of the course is straight from creative writing MFA programs: learn to write by writing, critiquing others writing, receiving critiques, and re-writing. So, one section at a time, with considerable feedback from groupmates, a proposal is created. Built into this structure is the beneficial effect on ones own project of defining it through specific aims, knowing enough about previous work in the field to write background and significance sections, and thinking through experiments sufficiently to develop the experimental rationale, design, expected outcomes, and interpretation. The MSTP Professional Development Course, it has been said, is like life: one gets out what one puts in (and also, there is sometimes free soda). By the end of the course those students who think about their own projects thoroughly enough to craft a good preliminary proposal, carefully read others preliminary versions section by section, and communicate what works and what doesnt will have a solid foundation in writing competitive grant proposals, a valuable career asset. For those few who dont put in the time, if all else fails remember rule number one: keep the sentences short.

Dr. Wiley and Dr. Chu lay out why funding matters and how funding works...

Congratulations to our newly minted Ph.D.s!!

Wilson Chang (Bioengineering) - Guiding vascular access with the sonic flashlight - Preclinical development and validation Brian Jian (Neuroscience) - Vestibular compensation: A spinovestibular mediated process Gil Citro (Medical Informatics) - Context-based seizure recognition using hidden Markov models and Bayesian networks David Levinthal (Neuroscience) - Mechanisms promoting ERK-dependent neuronal oxidative toxicity

Jeffrey Mai (Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics) - Characterization and optimization of peptide-mediated transduction