 Okay. We have a second concept for you to consider, and this is the renewal of the Centers of Excellence in LC research. And Jean McEwen is going to, she's a program director in genomics and society division, and she's going to present on behalf of Joy Boyer. Jean? Great. Thank you, Rudy. So a little bit of background on this year's program. We're now in the 13th year of the program's existence. We've issued our first set of grants back in fiscal year 2004. And the goals of the program have really been the same since the inception of the program. And they are, first, to create transdisciplinary research teams that can integrate behavioral, social science, legal and humanities research with genomic research efforts. Second goal is to facilitate the translation of research findings so that they can be used to inform health research and public policies, so a translational aim. And then the third goal is to really develop the next generation of LC researchers with emphasis on recruiting people from diverse backgrounds. In the initial years of the program, we used two mechanisms, the P-50 full center mechanism as well as the P-20 exploratory or planning grant mechanism. But when we last issued the RFA in 2015, for various technical and administrative reasons, we switched to a different mechanism, the RM-1, the research project with complex structure mechanism. And that's the same mechanism that we're proposing to use again this time around. So so far, since the program began, we funded a total of 11 full centers and eight of those P-20 exploratory centers in the years when we were funding those. Currently, we have six of these centers funded, listed here at UNC Chapel Hill, Yale Henderson PI, that center. We also have a center at Columbia University, a center at Johns Hopkins, one at the University of Oklahoma, University of Utah, which Jeff Botkin here is the PI of that center, and finally a center at Vanderbilt University. So six centers, and currently our budget for the program is about $6.1 million a year to fund these six centers, and that represents about 33% of the LC 5% set aside. So that's where we're at budgetarily. So to sort of clarify where the various centers are currently at in the funding cycle, UNC is now finishing its first, it's actual five-year renewal, so it will not be eligible to apply for this RFA. Columbia is now finishing its first funding cycle, so it will be eligible to reapply this time for one more four-year cycle of funding. And the other four centers, Hopkins, Oklahoma, Utah, and Vanderbilt, were all funded in 2016, so they all are fully funded for the next few years. A few words about the accomplishments of the centers that we've seen sort of play out over the life of the program. First I think it's fair to say that over the years the centers that we funded have done a very good job of establishing productive transdisciplinary research teams that have really involved the integration of a broad spectrum of both LC research and genomic research. A number of the investigators currently serve as PIs or co-investigators or consultants on various of the large-scale genomic studies, many of them funded through our division of genomic medicine, such as a number of the grants emerge in the CSER program and in insight of the newborn sequencing program. And it's also, I think, worth noting that by working within their institutions across disciplines, there's actually been a fair amount of institutional support from these home institutions for this kind of transdisciplinary research that really integrates this whole spectrum of disciplines. In terms of their translational successes over the years, the CSERs have provided a lot of resources, I think, to policymakers. They've written policy briefs and white papers that have really been used to inform the development of legislation at both the state and federal level. Investigators from the CSERs have provided a lot of expert testimony to Congress, to state legislatures, to groups like the President's Bioethics Commission and other federal advisory committees, and they've served on these committees as both members and in some cases as chairs. And in terms of their training mission, this is more than 100 graduate and postdoctoral students and junior faculty members have now, over the years, received training or mentoring through the CSERs. And about 25% of the trainees have been members of underrepresented minority groups, which is, I think, a pretty good record. A number of the CSERs actually have offered training at the undergraduate level, which in many cases has been a really successful way of bringing in minority trainees at the sort of the beginning of the pipeline. And a number of the graduate students and postdocs that have been trained through the CSERs have gone on to get tenure track positions, and a number have become PIs on their own grants. So I think, by and large, the program has been fairly successful in terms of accomplishing those three basic goals. So our plans for the reissuance, basically, the version that we're proposing this time is essentially identical to what we issued back in 2015 when we moved to that RM-1 mechanism. So specifically, once again, we'll require a focused and yet flexible research plan. We want people to propose either a single large project or a series of sort of highly integrated, more focused projects kind of all focused around a single theme. And we expect a good description of the education and career advancement activities that will be undertaken. And unlike in the initial years of the program, when we were really focused exclusively on postdoc training, now, under this mechanism, the training activities can really span the entire pipeline. So everything from graduate students to junior faculty and sort of everything in between. These grants, once again, will be for four years with the possibility of a four-year renewal for a total of eight years of funding. And just as with the last time we issued the RFA, the budgets will be limited to $650,000 per year. That's direct costs. The one thing we are proposing in this reissue is to provide a bit more clarification about the importance of the education and career advancement activities that we expect the centers to conduct. I think the last time the RFA was issued, there was some sort of lack of clarity in the language and there was a sense among, I think, some of the applicants and some of the feedback we got from reviewers that we were stepping away from that component of the centers, which was not the intention. So we've tried or we will be trying to really clarify this time that that remains an essential part of the expectations. And we will be encouraging people to, again, really keep the emphasis on training of minority or people from underrepresented minorities, encouraging them to leverage existing institutional programs and to take advantage of things like our diversity action plan and the other NIH diversity programs that exist, like the administrative supplements to promote diversity and the NRSA pre-doctoral diversity award to recruit and retain minority scholars. So to kind of briefly summarize our overall plan, we plan to open this to all applicants. We do anticipate that the one center whose funding will be ending next year may well apply, but the competition is wide open and we do anticipate receiving applications from a number of different institutions. And we hope to be able to make available around or up to $2 million in funding, which would allow us to fund up to two centers. The goal would be so that we could maintain about six centers in all while still keeping our budget to about 33% of our ELSI set aside. And I should mention that we're not planning to issue an exploratory solicitation as we did in those earlier years of the program. Our sense from our experience the last time we issued the announcement was that we're now at a point where there's really a pretty substantial number of institutions out there who are at a point where they can really have the capacity to compete successfully for a full center application so we don't really see the necessity anymore for an exploratory mechanism. So in terms of the proposed timeline, we think if Council approves the concept that we'll be ready for a July release date with applications due in November, they would be reviewed then in February or March of next year and then come back to Council a year from now with anticipation of a start date in August or September of 2018. So that's our general plan. If anyone has questions or comments, I'm happy to take them. Questions for Jeanita. So thanks for a very nice overview and summary of the CSER program. I'll just say that I would used to be part of one and I think it did really provide an important mechanism for increasing access to ELSI research issues among underrepresented minority groups. I had a postdoc who went on to become an assistant professor at Columbia University so I count her involvement in the CSER program as a really important component of her training. So a question for you is how is the decision made to only have two applications that would be funded in this next round of the program? It's sort of a practical matter. It's really a budgetary thing. As I said, we were actually advised by Council several years ago not to let the number of centers that are funded exceed about a third of our budget. And so if we were going to have to limit it to a proper maximum of six in order to keep to that limitation because otherwise, you know, we don't have enough funds for investigator initiated grants. Yeah. So as somebody who is sun downing on my center, I have found it to be an extraordinary opportunity to train new people, to bring together groups of people at an institution or several institutions to network across the country and the kinds of work that's done in the program that's done fostered by these centers has changed remarkably since 2003, is that when you first issued? 2004, I think, yeah. 2004 when those were first awarded. Think about that. It's 12 years. And think about what's happened with genomics. And the centers have really allowed people to be nimble, I think, in response to some of these technological sort of emerging issues in LC that track emerging different changes in genomics and big data. And I wonder, I wanted to follow up on Cheneyda's question because I'm just wondering why not, I think they're very functional. Why not fund three instead of two? Unless you think council said something that you can't work against. No. We can revisit absolutely. But it is always this question of how we balance the investigator initiated part of the portfolio with the centers or the program initiated part of the portfolio. And I do think, I mean, this is an area where we do want to encourage a lot of innovation. The science is changing so rapidly. And although the centers are designed, I think, to be very flexible and respond rapidly as things do develop, you also want the flexibility so that is a whole new technology comes down the pike that doesn't necessarily fit into the sort of the general subject matter of a particular center, that you've got the flexibility to maybe or maybe issue another RFA to focus directly on that issue, for example. So we're hesitant to tie up too much of our funds in a single program. But again, it's certainly something that can be revisited. It's just something to think about. And also, I don't know if before I came out, I apologize. I was a little late. Whether you just summarized what the themes are in the centers because they're wildly diverse in their approach and approaches. Yes. The kinds of things they're working on. Right. And I can go back to. And you did. Oh, well, I already know it, so you don't have to do it for me. Yeah. No, but they are. I mean, we have, for example, one of the centers is focused exclusively on issues relating to Native American, Alaska Native and American Indian sort of community attitudes towards genomics research in an incredibly important area, because it's an underserved population that we're really trying to reach out to. We have the Hopkins Center that's focused really on ELSI issues in genomics research related to infectious disease, prenatal testing is sort of Jeff's focus. I mean, so each of these centers is really has a very different and unique focus and yet broad enough that they're, you know, they're able to sort of take in new issues that arise within that area of focus. Two thumbs up. Yeah, Jean, thanks for the presentation. Just two quick things. I wonder if you can comment just briefly about Sears Central and that element of the network organization. And then secondly, I think one of the real assets of the network is the continued participation of centers or people who have centers who've rolled off their funding. And it would be just wonderful to be able to maintain the participation of those folks as much as possible. So we have any thoughts now about how the network might be able to motivate continued participation by those groups? Yeah, two very good questions. I'll answer the second one first. I think our goal and our plan is to try to keep the people who have been funded for these, you know, this initial over 10 years or almost 13 years now of the program because some of these have been extended to keep them involved because there's an incredible, you know, rich. I mean, these are really the pioneers in the program and we definitely want to have them involved and able to continue attending meetings or participating on calls. So that's definitely sort of part of the plan, exactly how that will be structured, you know, remains to be seen. And then you mentioned the Sears Central, which is kind of the name that we've given to the kind of informal coordinating center, which currently is being run out of UNC. And that's worked very well in terms of, you know, helping to coordinate, you know, monthly phone calls and most importantly to set up the periodic meetings, the face-to-face meetings that we have. They've also coordinated, you know, opportunities for trainees to travel, you know, from one center to another so that they can actually get some exposure to experts in working in other centers, you know, perhaps all the way across the country. So that's been another really effective way that we've used the coordinating center and we do plan to continue that in some form. Oh, I thought it said you weren't planning to continue it. In the brief, it says you're not planning. No, no, not in the, no, yes, let me correct myself, but we'll have a coordinating function. Yeah, that it won't, yeah. Well, I was just gonna say in contrast to Gail's comment, I think it is important to keep, I think the one-third ratio makes sense to me if you want to continue to get unsolicited applications and I think there will continue to be kind of new questions that come up as genetic testing gets implemented that you'd like to be able to have RO1s and other things about. Let me just point out that it might make sense if you want to revisit this issue to do it a year from now when you have the applications before you. The notion of funding three may be very compelling or it may just disappear depending on what's coming. Yeah, I mean, the other thing I should mention is that we are reaching out to other institutes to see if we can get funding from additional institutes and who knows, that may happen. I'm not holding my breath in this budget climate, but it could happen and obviously if it did, that would give us greater flexibility. Okay, I don't need to labor the discussion. Can I get a motion to approve the concept? And a second, all in favor? Any opposed, any abstentions? Thank you very much. Thank you, Jean. Thank you.