The CSRD margin meeting for the recent funding cycle was held on July 13 and “Intent-to-Fund” notices have been sent to stations.
On July 26, CSRD Health Science Specialist Eric Schwinder spoke virtually with a group of psychology postdoctoral fellows at the VA Boston Healthcare System about VA Career Development Awards. The Q&A session covered a variety of topics, including the funding mechanisms available, specific requirements for the mentoring team, project duration and budget, and the Letter of Intent process. If your VA Medical Center has a group of early-career investigators who might be interested in learning more about our Career Development funding opportunities, please reach out about hosting a similar Q&A session: VHACADEREview@va.gov.
BLRD and CSRD hosted our annual Symposium for Career Development Award (CDA) recipients on July 17 and 18. A total of 50 investigators participated representing two cohorts: those with CDAs beginning in 2020 and those with CDAs beginning in 2022. The agenda included remarks from leadership; a panel discussion on the ORD realignment; presentations by CDA program alumni, who have moved on to VA Merit Review Funding, and experts in Artificial Intelligence; and sessions on proposal writing, lab management, the Million Veteran Program, VA Tech Transfer Program, and the VA Central IRB. There were also opportunities for our CDA recipients to present their own research and to network with one another and their ORD Scientific Portfolio Managers. Thank you to CSRD’s Dr. Mark Roltsch and Eric Schwinder for planning, organizing, conducting, and moderating another successful CDA Symposium that provided the opportunity to hear from early career investigators, answer their questions, introduce them to various ORD stakeholders, and build community.
Congratulations to CSRD investigator Dr. Matthew Rettig and his team for their study being featured on Fox News for enterprising work looking at artificial intelligence to predict prostate cancer. Dr. Rettig is chief of oncology at the Greater Los Angeles VA Medical Center and a multiple principal investigator for the study. Other MPIs on the team are Dr. Nicholas NIckols and Dr. Isla Garraway from GLA, Dr. Anant Madabhushi from the Atlanta VA and Dr. Beatrice Knudsen from the Salt Lake City VA. The study will analyze data from more than 5,000 Veterans. “A digital repository for data will allow for development, testing, and validation of prognostic classifiers that could impact clinical management of Veterans with high-risk prostate cancer,” Dr Rettig said. "The infrastructure developed by this research will serve as a valuable hub for future discovery and … serve as a roadmap to develop similar AI algorithms for other cancers, such as lung cancer and even non-cancerous diseases that commonly affect our Veterans."
The deadline for Fall 2022 applications in eRA Just-In-Time (JIT) is August 15, 2023. Principal Investigators (PI) and stations with open applications in eRA JIT should endeavor to upload and submit documents to respective JIT areas that remain outstanding. It is recommended that JIT areas are completed incrementally, as soon as documents are available, rather than waiting until all documents are ready before submitting to eRA JIT. Incremental upload of documents to the appropriate eRA JIT area gives ORD staff sufficient time to make decisions on each JIT area.
If a JIT extension waiver is needed, please submit a request using the ORD JIT Extension Request form. Requests for a 30-day extension (at most 60-day extension for first time requests) should be submitted to eRA JIT or the vhacoblcsrdjit@va.gov mailbox. The justification memo should be detailed and include specifics of current progress on the outstanding JIT items, steps being taken to complete the items, revisions being made in response to IRB or R&D, and an approximate timeline for completion. The PI should prepare the document and the ACOS/R should sign the JIT extension request memo prior to submission.
The CSRD Data Monitoring Committee (DMC), that provides data and safety monitoring for CSRD-funded projects, is seeking biostatisticians, neurologists, and other new members. For more information, please contact DMC Manager Dr. Tamara Paine at Tamara.Paine@va.gov.
Career Development: VHACADEReview@va.gov
Clinical Trials: clin-review@va.gov
General Mailbox: VHABLRD-CSRD@va.gov (Please note this is a shared mailbox that should be used for general questions that will triaged by staff to the appropriate individual.)
Just-in-Time Mailbox: VHACOBLCSRDJIT@va.gov
Newsletter: Lucindia.Shouse@va.gov
Scientific Portfolio/Program Managers: BLR&D and CSR&D Contact Information (va.gov)
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