 All right, we're going to move along. The second concept is titled Grants for New Investigators to Promote Diversity in Genomic Research. This concept was developed by staff members Mike Payson and Jyoti Dayal, and Jyoti will give the presentation. All right, thank you so much. Okay, well, good afternoon everyone. Thank you council for this opportunity to present to you account concept clearance grants for new investigators to promote diversity in genomics research. I'd like to acknowledge and thank my colleague Mike Payson who will join us in the Q&A session R01 working group to for their support and guidance in developing this initiative. Okay, okay. So in continuing with the theme of workforce diversity, our goal for this concept is to increase the number of investigators in genomics research from diverse backgrounds including underrepresented demographic groups. So today I'll be covering background, scope and objectives of the concept, how this compares to other funding opportunity activities and ask council for their input in the discussion. There are many benefits to fostering a diverse workforce. It promotes diversity of scientific ideas. We gain an understanding of different perspectives from researchers and also maintains cultures of inclusive excellence and collectively this will help synergize efforts to increase the diversity of individuals included in genomics research. The NHGRI strategic vision was published in October of 2020 and lists the European genomics workforce as a guiding principle for human genomics that the promise of genomics cannot fully be achieved without a diverse the R01 is one part of the overall NHGRI vision. And as Vince discussed earlier, NHGRI recently published its action agenda for building a diverse genomics workforce. This initiative is part of that emerging portfolio to support research programs to build up independent genomic research careers. NIH issued a diversity statement to identify four categories of groups underrepresented in the US biomedical research enterprise. There are four groups below defined individuals who are underrepresented individuals from certain racial and ethnic backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, individuals from certain disadvantaged backgrounds and women under certain circumstances. And for further details or expanded definitions for each group, please refer to the notice link. While we don't have data on all underrepresented groups, we'd like to report on data from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups. And this data is coming from the NIH scientific workforce diversity office. So for example, in the area of STEM, science, technology, engineering and math fields, they reported that 14% of PhDs in 2018 were awarded to URM candidates up from 7% from 2000 to 2008. And for R01 applicants, there's a slight increase in black African American and Hispanic Latino R01 applicants from 2013 to 2018. And while the progress is minimal, there's still more work to be done to make a difference. I'd like to call attention to two recent publications that came out commenting on the status of grant funding to diverse and underrepresented groups. These publications call for the urgent attention to invite and improve representation from underrepresented groups. And all of this is to say that we are moving the needle in the right direction, but there's still more work to be done. So just to reiterate, the Diversity R01 RFA addresses the NHRA Action Agenda to develop and support research transition programs to independent genomic research careers. This initiative would focus on new investigator and early stage investigators. We would implement this similar to other diversity announcements and consistent with the NIH diversity statement. And any research topics are suitable within NHGRI's mission and open across the scientific topics in Division of Genomic Medicine, Division of Genome Sciences, and the Division of Genomics and Society. And then the topic of research interest is up to the investigator. This allows for maximum flexibility and we want to promote all types of genomics research among diverse investigators. NHGRI is considering five to seven new awards per year for three years and considering a set aside of $5.25 million in total cost in the first fiscal year. The $5.25 million is tied to making seven new awards per year. Applications would be limited to 500k direct costs per year and the project period would be limited to five years. Now, relative to other ongoing activities, the NIDDK R21PAR, which we are currently signed on to, is open to new investigators and early stages investigators and provides up to three years of funding at 125k direct costs of limit per year. And this is aimed at increasing workforce diversity and really laid the groundwork for the R01 diversity RFA. And the middle box is the standard NIH R01, which is open to all career stages, has up to five years of funding and 500k direct costs per year limit. The diversity RFA is unique in that NHGRI is making this a priority. We're focusing on new investigators and early stage investigators. And since this is an RFA, we are setting aside funds and having a dedicated special emphasis panel to provide advice to reviewers at an NHGRI-led review. So this will help increase workforce diversity and similar to the standard NIH R01 is recognized as a career milestone. So we're asking council to weigh in on the following alternative career stages. So we're starting out with new investigators and early and early stage investigators. Alternatives which could expand to a wider group could include investigators who are new to NHGRI, they may have expertise in other areas and would like to do genomics research, investigators without an active R01 equivalent award could apply. And then for established investigators, do we set a cap on the direct cost limit and would it divert funds from individuals at early career stages. For the yearly direct cost limit at 500k direct costs per year limit, this would support more expensive grants, but alternatively less direct costs per year could support more awards. And is the five to seven awards per year appropriate, more awards would require resources or small awards. Fewer awards might be too few to make a difference recognizing the challenge to predict the response for this RFA. So this concludes my presentation. And in the interest of being able to see raised hands in the chat, I'll click the slide up for another 30 seconds and then take it down. And then we're asking council members doctors Chung rich and Parker to start us off with a council discussion but we will welcome comments from all council members. So please stop there and Dr Chung please feel free to comment. Sure. So, I'm strongly supportive of this I think this continues in terms of as we've been talking about you know, multiple opportunities and I think people will need multiple opportunities to continue their, the progress in terms of their career. I guess I was a little confused about some of the mechanics, I hadn't thought, God, when you were presenting this that this would be established investigators and so I just wanted to get clarification if I understood that right I thought this was really early investigators. And then the other mechanical question I was trying to think about is that there's because you're going to get people with a diversity of research topics that they're coming into study. I'm assuming you're getting. I'm confused about the special emphasis panel I'm assuming these are going to multiple other study sections with people who are expert in those areas but then the special emphasis panel is taking those reviews and making decisions or how does this sort of process work and how do you compare apples and oranges I guess if they're reviewed in different study sections. Sure. So I can answer your first question with the established investigators so the question to council is, should we include established investigators in this will we the way the concept is written right now as we started out with new investigators and early stage investigators, but should we be considering extending this out to a larger pool of applicants. I get my, my own personal opinion is, you know, not if they've already hit that milestone in terms of having their own are ones and things like that I mean to me that's not what this opportunity should be about. Okay, and your next question for my me is about the review is that correct. Right so who reviews these and then how does the special emphasis panel work in terms of, I guess, comparing reviews across study sections or is it everyone's reviewed by one special emphasis panel even if they're very different specialty areas. So we haven't discussed that in detail but I know that this this would be done at NHGRI Rudy or I see Carolyn coming up if you could help provide some clarification on that. Right well this is yeah Rudy go ahead. No, I will defer to the division directors I will comment when we get to the review question. Yeah so this is Terry. So I'm helping Joe to with this one and and really the plan is to have an NHGRI special emphasis panel so it would be a single special emphasis panel. We have a fabulous review group and I don't know how they do it but they managed to pull in expertise in all of the areas relevant to applications that are received so so we're pretty confident that it will be an expert review and probably have more expertise, definitely have more expertise in genomics than one would see in a general study section but as well cover all of those areas. I'm just going to echo that we have experience with this our genomic innovator is a situation where those go to a single panel and cover the whole the similar breath and we really had successful again with our strong review panel so just giving you an example that we already do this in some situations with success. Okay, thanks. Okay, so Rafael I see your hand up but I'm going to allow the other assigned discussants to go first and then we'll come back to you okay. All right, Lisa. Are you next. I think this follows on the discussion about review because I have been interested in the concept document in the note that applications from underrepresented group applicants had been less successful. But that this had to do with choice of research topic more focused on community and population research, less concerned with more fundamental and mechanistic investigations, and I was wondering whether whether that's that focus is okay, whether there is a desire to attract applicants into one prong or the other of that possible dichotomy. And then, depending on the answer to what's what's desired, what will be done to try to shape the focus of the research question, if anything at all. It's just going to be handled by review being more open to the broad range of research foci. Yeah, so we want to maximize again flexibility we don't want to put any restrictions or filters on the topic of interest if there's interest in community community work, you know we would welcome that. And I think there was a part two to your question. Can it all be just, I'm sorry, can it all just be managed by educating the review panel. Is that your question. Yes. Yeah. I think, if I could step in here I think if we have champions on the review panel, panel members that will champion that kind of research, the problem takes care of itself. Anything else from you Lisa, if not we'll move on to Steve rich then please. JOT. Congratulations with you and your team and Mike for putting something together like this. I'm very supportive. I did have a couple of comments and many of those have already been spoken from the previous concept and, and part of it is, you know, defining metrics for success using data I think the metrics for success of this program may be different than the metrics for success for the previous program. And, you know, understanding what it is that you're really targeting as as what are those appropriate metrics. If a metric is they get an hour one and they go to another institution because they've got an hour one that might not necessarily be the best metric but you know any sort of ideas of what it is that can be considered as as a success for the program. I do think there's an issue of mentoring. You almost need to figure out your mentoring at understanding how to put the application together mentoring if you get the application mentoring as you continue with your professional development. Essentially, it's again what was stated as lifelong mentoring is something that can really be, I think, critical to success as as you define it. I'm also in favor of the new investigator early stage investigator if someone already has an hour one or has had an hour one that's already met the criteria. I've also had some experience in working in foundations and other types of areas where the, they're giving support to establish investigators new to the field and it hardly ever seems to work out well. It's almost like they needed money to fund some work that they were doing and here's another disease or an area that they wanted to go that they could get money from by going into it. It's not that it's that way every time but I'd much rather focus on the next generation of investigators and you investigator early stage investigator. I do think there's an issue related to the social networking component of this that really needs to be thought through. It's a it's a social support, it's a support of peers that support of individuals who may be, you know, potential mentors, and I'm not certain how you can do it. Within the American Diabetes Association there was a pathways to independence or a pathways program where individuals who are at the postdoc to faculty member and early faculty positions get tied in with a mentor. They're highlighted at the scientific sessions, there's groups of meetings they develop a network. I don't know how this can be done in this program. But I think it's something that we're thinking about in helping them develop this social network and support system. And then the last thing is, you know, is in a sense, five to seven awards per year appropriate, probably not. You know, you probably could double triple order of magnitude increases, but given this a new program is hard to know exactly what is the right number, because you don't know how many applications you'll get even the first or second or third offering. So, as long as NHGRI has an ability to be flexible. And, you know, I'm not certain how any governmental agency can be flexible but hopefully NHGRI is. If they get a lot of applications and there are 15, let's just say at the first series that look really fabulous, but you only have funds for five to seven. Is there another pot of money someplace that you can use, or even partner with another institute, you know, some are focused more on Alzheimer's or heart disease or something like that. Can you go go go with your handout to NHLBI or NIA and say here's a great way of increasing diversity and you can take partial credit for it if you give some money to this. And just somehow make certain that you have really great people that don't fall through the cracks. So I'll stop there. So Terry I saw your camera come on did you want to speak to something here. I could but I thought perhaps I'd let JOT respond first there are a lot of questions there JOT do you want to take one or two of them. I can take on that the mentorship. So there are other, there are programs that are focused on mentorship, and what we're trying to do here is to get beyond that the early career stage and address those shortfalls and and helping get the investigators that are one that career milestone stage so that's that's our goal for here. Let's see if there's some other. So thank you for your comment about the new investigators and early stage investigators, and then Terry, I don't know if you wanted to maybe comment on the additional funds. Sure. So, so with any of these programs we do and we appreciate the suggestion we do reach out to other institutes and ask if they would like to partner with us. This is how we got involved in the NIDDK program that's very similar to this one we actually built it built ours upon that one so they reached out to us we participated and it's been a successful program. So we'll do the same thing here and hope for participation. I think we would see this as a priority we start off with with five to seven is a starting point but but you know if we have funds this year or later or can shift them around, you know we'd certainly take Council's advice that probably we could use a lot in in this area. Joti makes a good point that we do have a lot of programs that are that are focused on the career development stage which are a little earlier in the, in the process and those have formal mentoring. I think we could consider, including some language in the solicitation that might address that or at least allow for it, where it's not something that is typically done in an R01 independent investigator award and and sometimes it's not viewed as as favorably as someone who is not seeking I think you had also asked about metrics of success Steve. That's something I think we need to develop. We certainly would look at the end of the day at whether we'd increase the number of R01s that we were funding to minority investigators which currently we're quite below the NIH average so so that's probably our number one metric of success but if you have other suggestions we very much welcome them. You know, if the individual is at a site that has historically not been successful and R01 funding of any sort, or certainly genomic R01 funding. I would think the training of additional students or fellows or having sort of the right, you know, sort of the, you know, the effect of here's someone who has really been successful in genomics and now graduate students and others will flock to that person and you'll actually see a beginning of the wealth in a way. I think something like that might be useful if that can be quantified in some way. Great. Yeah, we'll try and do that. Thank you. Or like a rainmaker. Sure. And I think it's important to keep in mind that there are a lot of investigators that minority investigators who are not at minority institutions or under under resource institutions and they still have terrible rates of getting, you know, awards and rewards. So, so it's not just that they're all concentrated in places that don't have resources. Right. All right, Rafael you in the day one patients award go ahead please. Thank you. Yeah, my question relates to the possibility that there's some confounding that we want to learn about between these categories that you're looking at and the type of grants that are being applied for or the types of the areas of research that are being applied for. I'm not sure that has been looked at when I hear and read these papers here about and read these papers about the percentages being lower. They give a general percentage. Has anybody looked at what it looks like when you break it up by area or by Institute within the NIH or within any other subcategory of type of grant. Is it across the board lower percentages or does it change depending on which one. I'll take this one as well. Rafa there is a growing literature on this and it's, it appears to be really across the board. The, the issue of research topic is only one of many issues that relates to the lower success rate here. There is a tendency and it seems to be, you know, pretty, pretty strong and significant for minority and underserved investigators to be focusing less on basic research and more on applied research and we don't see it in any realm that those tend to do less well. NIH is is doing a fair amount of investigation into this and probably has the sample sizes to be able to look at it and each year I doesn't. And even at the NIH level that the papers that you quoted you know they they aggregate five years of data in order to be able to get enough numbers so. This is an area of very active investigation within NIH, we're probably the only people that can really do it because we have access to the confidential information that other people don't in terms of when people succeed and when they fail and that sort of thing. But I agree it's something we'd really like to learn more about. Thank you. Okay Sharon you're next. Terry sort of just addressed but it was sort of back to a comment you made Rudy I think the issue of training reviewers is not simple. And the issue of eliminating bias is not simple and I do. The mechanism is very important but I think the Institute really has to look at how do we train reviewers. What is this review panel going to look like is there going to be additional training because I don't think it's only I mean Terry just raised the issue that it's many things it's not just subject area but I do think it's sort of on us to create the opportunities but also to make sure that the review is as unbiased as possible. Other questions for Joti or Mike. All right, you get 10 seconds to find the mute button and I don't see anybody acting so can I get a motion to approve the concept. Second, so move. All in favor for five, four, three, two, one. Thank you. Anyone staining or opposed. Thank you very much.