Grants

We had a bit of a set back yesterday. We turned in a grant application to the National Institutes of Health in Feb. The NIH is made up of many smaller sections and when you turn in your grant, it is assigned to one of the sections - usually the one deemed most appropriate based on your grant. Our grant kind of straddled three of the sections - cancer, audiology, and neuroscience. We asked that it be assigned to Audiology but someone got the great idea to assign it to cancer. That means that we are competing for a fist full of dollars with people studying breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and the like. Our cancer doesn't affect or kill anywhere close to the number of people as the ones I just mentioned. As such, the chances of our grant getting funded with Pres. Bush's extremely tight grip on the NIH are non-existant. Truthfully speaking, those cancers do deserve the bulk of the funding from the Cancer section of the NIH. That is why we applied to a different section. In the last 15 years, the Cancer section has not funded one grant on Vestibular Schwannomas. After hearing that we were being assigned to the Cancer section, we asked that the grant be reassigned but to no avail. We are considering reapplying to the Veteran's Administration for funding. I guess we'll have to see what happens. NIH grants have been very hard to get the last few years. Even well established researchers are getting their grants tossed.

Eventhough we have two currently funded grants, we are always writting the next one. This is a never ending process. I am grateful the responsibility for funding a lab does not fall on my shoulders. Research is very expensive. Even basic consumables are expensive. The only thing that comes cheap is the labor. Although I like to complain about my pay, I really am lucky to have this job. I really do love what I do. I guess there really isn't much to complain about.

Well, my timer goes off in 12 minutes so I need to wrap things up and get back to the next step of my Western blot.