Sponsored Research News
April 1, 2009

While the stimulus bill has received much attention, the 2009 budget was passed almost 6 months into the federal fiscal year. The budget contains increases over 2008 levels for most federal agencies. This is important to the long-term health of the agencies. Below is a summary of the some of the increases.

National Institutes of Health (NIH). The measure funds NIH at $30.3 billion, a $938-million, or 3.2-percent, increase over the FY08 level. At Rutgers, we are starting to see that NIH non-competing research grant awards that had been funded at a level below that indicated on the most recent Notice of Award are being restored to their full amount.

National Science Foundation (NSF). The FY09 omnibus package provides $6.5 billion for NSF, an increase of $425 million, or seven percent, over FY08. Included in the total is $5.2 billion for Research and Related Agencies and $845 million for Education and Human Resources. This will allow NSF to fully fund initiates such as Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation.

Department of Energy Office of Science. The Office receives $4.77 billion, which is $755 million, or nearly 19 percent, above the FY08 level. Within that total, $1.57 billion will go to Basic Energy Sciences, which includes $100 million, the amount contained in the budget request, for the new Energy Frontier Research Centers program.

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The measure provides NEH with $155 million, a 10.3-million, or seven percent, increase over FY08.

Department of Education: Funding for GAANN and Javitz Fellowships will increase 4.2% to $41M.

Due to the stimulus package and the late signing of the federal budget, NSF, NIH and other agencies will be scrambling to make awards this spring and summer. It is very important that faculty be ready to receive funds when notified. In particular, if you have an annual or final report due at an agency where you have a pending proposal, make sure it is submitted on time or even early. Make sure your co-PIs are up to date with reports as well. Similarly, if an award would require IRB or IACUC approval, submit the protocol for review this month rather than waiting for a notice of award.

In my time at NSF, I saw about 10 faculty not funded because money had to be spent one fiscal year and the faculty were not ready to receive an award.

My office will start a service of proofreading proposals or proposal summaries submitted to federal agencies. Lisa Pierce, a graduate of Rutgers M.S. program in Communication and Information Studies, begins on Monday, April 6. The goal is to offer faculty the opportunity to make sure that proposals have fewer typographical errors than my newsletters. We hope to have 4-hour turnaround for 1-page proposal summaries and 24-hour turnaround for proposals that require light editing. Furthermore, if you want more detailed assistance, e.g., if English is not your native language, Lisa will work more closely with you over several weeks as you develop a proposal. To request assistance with the text of a proposal, send an e-mail to Michael Mueller (micmuell@vpr.rutgers.edu). Lisa will not help you develop an idea or a proposal but rather make sure your ideas are expressed well.

Cliff Davidson, a patent attorney in NY and graduate of Rutgers, will give a seminar on patenting on Friday, May 1 at 10am in CoRe 301.

http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?oppId=46348&flag2006=false&mode=VIEW

The Technology Innovation Program (TIP) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), United States Department of Commerce (DoC), is soliciting high-risk, high-reward research and development (R&D) proposals. It funds joint ventures that consist of at least one small-sized or medium-sized eligible for-profit company and one institution of higher education or other organization ... both of which are contributing to the cost-sharing requirement, with the lead entity of the joint venture being either the small-sized or medium-sized company or the institution of higher education.

Area of Critical National Need 1: Civil Infrastructure

The objective of this competition is to provide civil infrastructure managers with tools to better manage the structural integrity of elements of the civil infrastructure. Two elements of the societal challenge of managing the Structural Integrity of the United States' Infrastructure will be addressed as outlined in the white paper "Advanced Sensing Technologies and Advanced Repair Materials for the Infrastructure: Water Systems, Dams, Levees, Bridges, Roads, and Highways" (www.nist.gov/tip/comp09_home.html).

Area of Critical National Need 2: Manufacturing

The goal of the research outcome/impacts from this competition is to provide manufacturers and end users improved access to adequate quantities of advanced materials at competitive costs that allow evaluation and utilization of these materials in innovative ways. TIP's funding strategy for this competition will emphasize two important elements: 1) Process scale-up, integration, and design for advanced materials; and 2) Predictive modeling for advanced materials and materials processing. These two elements of the societal challenge of accelerating the use of advanced materials will be addressed as outlined in the white paper "Accelerating the Incorporation of Materials Advances into Manufacturing Processes" (www.nist.gov/tip/comp09_home.html).

The US Department of Education has several programs with a June 25 Deadline.

• Education Research Request for Applications
• Postdoctoral Education Research Training Program in the Education Sciences
• Statistical and Research Methodology in Education Request for Applications
• Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies Request for Applications
• Special Education Research Request for Applications
• Postdoctoral Research Training Program in Special Education

See http://ies.ed.gov/funding/10rfas.asp for details

Come hear reviewer insights into why some NIH proposals get funded and others do not. Your Rutgers colleagues who sit on NIH study sections will share what they have learned as both reviewers and grant recipients. Criteria for "stimulus" funding, as well as the standard extramural programs, will be discussed.

Dr. Haym Hirsh, Director of the NSF Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (CISE/IIS) and faculty member in Rutgers Computer Science Department on leave to NSF, will talk about strategies for writing successful NSF proposals and NSF programs that address the stimulus package.

Monday, April 20

11:00

CoRE Auditorium
96 Frelinghuysen Rd
Piscataway, NJ 08854-8018

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=88

SEBS - April 1 at 10am

Newark - April 1 at 3pm

Life Sciences - April 2 at 2:30pm

Engineering - April 2 at 4pm

Camden - April 13 at 12:15pm

In the next few weeks, there will be 5 meetings for faculty interested in learning more about the programs being put into place by NSF, NIH, NIST, DOE, etc. as part of the federal stimulus packages and how to apply for them. All but the life sciences talk will be very similar with an example or two geared toward the expected audience, i.e., the one in Engineering will concentrate a bit more on the Engineering Directorate at NSF. The meetings in Life Sciences will spend 90% of the time on NIH, while the others will put equal emphasis on other agencies. The meetings are intended to be interactive, and I would like to learn what faculty have heard in discussions with federal officials.

School of Environmental and Biological Sciences Meeting

Weds, April 1

10:00 am

Foran Hall, Room 138A

Cook Campus

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=137

I will be joined by Holly Crawford, Associate Dean for Research at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

Newark Meeting

Weds, April 1

3:00 pm

Aidekman Research Center

Main Seminar Room

Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience

197 University Avenue, Newark

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=453

Life Sciences Meeting

Thursday, April 2

2:30 pm

Life Sciences Auditorium

145 Bevier Rd

Busch Campus

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=1085

I will be joined by Ken Breslauer, VP for Health Science Partnerships and Dean of Life Sciences. We will spend most of the time on NIH which has issued a dozen RFAs.

http://grants.nih.gov/recovery/

Engineering Meeting

Thursday, April 2

4:00 pm

CAIT Auditorium

100 Brett Road

Busch Campus

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=1087

Camden Meeting

Monday, April 13

12:15 pm

Armitage Hall, Faculty Lounge, 3rd Floor

311 N. 5th St., Camden

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=442

The Rutgers Distinguished Faculty Talk series concludes this year with 3 talks. The talks are scheduled for the first Monday of each month at 4pm.

Joan Marter's talk has been rescheduled to April 13 due to the snow storm in March.

All talks will be broadcast live on RU-TV http://rutv.rutgers.edu/ruiptv.shtml .

Rutgers Distinguished Faculty Talk Series - Putting the Brakes on Alzheimer's Disease
http://ruevents.rutgers.edu/events/displayEvent.html?eventId=56267

Apr 6, 2009

by Dr. Karl Herrup, Cell Biology & Neuroscience

Talk, Lecture, Seminar

Fiber Optic Materials Research Building, Busch Campus
http://maps.rutgers.edu/buildingsearch.aspx?q=Fiber%20Optic%20Materials%20Research%20Building

101 Bevier Road at 4:00pm

The focus of the Herrup lab is on cell cycle regulation in the adult neuron. While most textbooks describe the typical CNS neuron as permanently post mitotic, we have been exploring the ways in which the textbook needs to be re-written. We are particularly interested in the ways in which cell cycle dysregulation is linked to cell death in normal situations and in human diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Our work involves mouse genetics and animal models of human diseases, as well as direct work with human tissue. Our technical approaches involve mammalian genetics and molecular biology.

Karl Herrup is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at Rutgers University, a position he has held since 2006. He received his Bachelors degree from Brandeis University in Waltham, MA and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University in 1974. After two postdoctoral fellowships in Neurogenetics at Childrens Hospital/Harvard Medical School and in Neuropharmacology at the Biozentrum in Basel Switzerland, he joined the faculty of the Human Genetics Department of Yale Medical School in 1978. He became Director of the Division of Developmental Neurobiology at the E. K. Shriver Center in Waltham, MA in 1988. In 1992 he moved to Case Western Reserve University Medical School and University Hospitals of Cleveland where he directed the Alzheimer's Center from 1999 through 2005.

Rutgers Distinguished Faculty Talk Series - The Perils of Progress: Artists Respond to Advances in Science and Technology of the 1930s-1940s.
http://ruevents.rutgers.edu/events/displayEvent.html?eventId=56268

Apr 13, 2009

by Dr. Joan Marter, Art History Dept.

Talk, Lecture, Seminar

Fiber Optic Materials Research Building, Busch Campus
http://maps.rutgers.edu/buildingsearch.aspx?q=Fiber%20Optic%20Materials%20Research%20Building

101 Bevier Road at 4:00pm

In recent years scholars have been exploring the visual languages of painting and sculpture not just "as a formative tool for political struggle," but as a "location for ongoing political conflict" [David Craven] Sculptural themes of the 1940s suggest that this art production is more divergent ideologically than has been previously recognized. This paper will introduce themes that appear in sculpture of the 1940s, and the historical factors that problematize these works. Sculptors are revealed as both subverting American attitudes toward technological developments, while serving her cultural ascendancy. Advances in technology which had evoked positive responses among artists of the 1930s, now assumed sinister connotations. The promise of a world of peace and prosperity based on the successful utilization of scientific progress was irrevocably broken.

Professor Marter is the author of books on sculptors Alexander Calder (Cambridge) and Theodore Roszak (Washington) and many articles and essays. She has organized numerous exhibitions and written catalogue essays, including Off Limits: Rutgers University and the Avant-Garde, 1957-63, and she was co-author of American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, volume II (Yale). Her recent publication is Abstract Expressionism, The International Context (Rutgers). Marter has been editor of the Woman's Art Journal since 2005.

Rutgers Distinguished Faculty Talk Series - Greening of Ceramic Manufacturing
http://ruevents.rutgers.edu/events/displayEvent.html?eventId=56268

May 4, 2009

by Dr. Richard Riman, Materials Science and Engineering

Talk, Lecture, Seminar

Fiber Optic Materials Research Building, Busch Campus
http://maps.rutgers.edu/buildingsearch.aspx?q=Fiber%20Optic%20Materials%20Research%20Building

101 Bevier Road at 4:00pm

Faculty and students are encouraged to attend a unique event designed to educate, motivate and inspire those interested in start-up ventures.

Rutgers Entrepreneurship Day Economic Growth through Innovation

Hosted by The BEST Institute

May 13, 2009 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Rutgers Student Center, College Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ

Directions: http://maps.rutgers.edu/building.aspx?id=278

Some highlights include:

• Keynote speech by Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and now a partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KP).

  Bill Joy was Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems. He led Sun's technical strategy from the founding of the company in 1982 until September 2003. While at Sun, Bill was a key designer of Sun technologies, including Solaris, SPARC, chip architectures and pipelines, and Java. In 1995 he installed the first city-wide WiFi network. Bill has more than 40 patents issued or in progress.

  At KP he helps entrepreneurs advance the Internet, develop wireless innovations, and find new ways of using large scale computing to solve the most difficult problems. He also looks to help entrepreneurs who have discoveries and inventions that can solve energy and resource problems and helps them apply 21st century advances in physics, chemistry and the natural sciences to help create abundance.

• Rutgers Business School Ninth Annual Business Plan Competition- The top five finalists will compete for prizes totaling $35,000, generously contributed by the New Jersey Sales Executive Foundation.

• Elevator Pitch Forum and Poster Session - Attendees can pitch their ideas to VCs and Angel Investors in a small group setting. Posters are welcomed.

This event is free but registration is required. To RSVP, please visit www.best.rutgers.edu/rsvp

NIH has announced that starting April 1, in a collaboration with Twitter, it will begin accepting proposals by text message. To submit a proposal, faculty should

1. Create a screen name on http://www.twitter.com
2. Invite NatInHealth to be your friend.
3. Post a proposal by text message

Proposals are limited to 140 characters including budget and CV. While all health related topics are covered by this announcement, special consideration will be given to proposals that address conditions that affect the Web 2.0 generation such as blackberry thumb. Proposals will be reviewed by the general public on Digg.com and funding decision will be announced within 24 hours of submission. Funds will be distributed by PayPal, eliminating the need for university accounting systems.

NIH spokesperson Dr. April Fulesjoak said that NIH anticipates the pay line to be at 4 stars.