Update from Scientific Directors

K99/R00 Intramural Awardees

Update

Dr. Schwartz reviewed the K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Awards and the demographics of the awardees. As of April 30, 2007, 77 awards have been made, including 6 to intramural postdoctoral fellows. Intramural fellows have done slightly better than others (11.5% of applicants have won awards vs. 7.0% of extramural fellows). However, many ICs are holding funding until the end of the fiscal year, and do not consider the K99 ‘awarded’ if it is going to an intramural fellow, so these are rather incomplete numbers at this stage. She asked the SDs for help in making identification of intramural applicants easier, by encouraging applicants to use a standard IC name – specifically, the full name of the IC (ie, National Cancer Institute). She then presented two proposals for consideration by the SDs. Every IC has set aside $90,000 per year for the K99 portion of the award and because the awards were established by a congressional authorization, part of those funds could be transferred to the intramural program to cover an increase in stipend and to provide a small amount of supplies funding to enable the awardee to begin establishing an independent project. The SDs supported providing a stipend increase of $5000-$10,000 per awardee, using the authority in the IRTA manual chapter for exceptional stipend increases. They further agreed that Dr. Gottesman, together with Dr. Adams, should present the proposal about transfer of the K99 funds from the ICs to the intramural programs to the IC Directors. A general discussion indicated that while some SDs review all K99/R00 applications and permit only certain ones to be submitted, others encourage all fellows to submit.