Minutes of the Scientific Directors' Meeting

 

February 20, 2008 9:00 A.M.

Building 1 - Room 151

  1. Minutes of the February 6, 2008, Meeting: The minutes were approved with no additions or corrections.
  2. Center for Inherited Disease Research - Genotyping Funding: Dr. Lawrence Brody, Chief Scientific Officer of the Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR), provided an overview of the facility, which is located in the Triad Building on the Bayview Campus of JHU in Baltimore. It currently operates under a $115M five-year contract with Johns Hopkins University, with 43 staff, a Board of Governors that provides oversight, and a capacity for >30K samples per year. Thirteen ICs are Member Institutes, each of which pays a base fee proportional to their size. CIDR provides SNP genotyping for human GWAS studies, human and mouse linkage scans, Cancer and MHC Marker Panels, as well as human and mouse custom genotyping. There are pilot projects covering methylation assays and statistical interpretation. The facility has just been CLIA-certified. Dr. Brody reviewed recent significant advances in chip technology, including the ability to do analyses of copy number variation. He provided data on completed projects and on measures of cumulative quality control.
    Of 204 investigators who have used the facility over the past 11 years, only 10 have been intramural. Some of the reasons for the low use by intramural PIs include: (1) the cost, which the PIs must pay from their intramural CANs (genotyping is free for extramural PIs since the "interested" ICs pay genotype costs directly); (2) the need for review by a special access review committee that approves only 50% of the applications; and (3) the long time to delivery, which can be more than a year from original submission of a CIDR access application. The discussion showed that many ICs have their own facilities and it was suggested that a committee might review those facilities to determine the quality relative to that of CIDR and the availability of excess capacity for other ICs, and to assess how up-to-date the facilities are. Dr. Brody agreed to discuss with the CIDR Board of Governors whether SD review and approval might replace the CIDR access committee review for intramural projects, to speed up the process and make the facility of more interest to intramural scientists.
  3. Progress Report on Dollar-Stretching Activities: Next Steps: Mrs. Linda Adams reviewed the charge that was presented to the six subcommittees established to develop creative suggestions for dollar-stretching. Each subcommittee prepared a report that contains detailed recommendations, along with responses and comments from the OD service provider related to its activities. The recommendations have been classified into those that an IC could implement directly, those that would need the cooperation of other ICs, and those that would need assistance/approval at the corporate NIH level. Mrs. Adams then reviewed current activities of each subcommittee. She asked that each SD review the detailed lists, discuss with administrative staff, PIs and lab managers, and select those items that would be implemented within the IC. In addition, each SD should consult with other SDs on those items they would be interested in working on jointly. She also proposed a joint SD/AO/EO meeting to allow ICs and OD managers to pair up on prioritized items and to share best practices. OIR will track all actions and act as the liaison for the ICs and various OD offices involved. The SDs agreed that the top three items should be consolidation of purchasing, the use of reverse auctions, and implementation of the recommendations on personnel actions. Mrs. Adams will work with them on these top three.
  4. Public Access: Update: Dr. Gottesman reminded the SDs that the deadline for full implementation of the new public access requirement is April 7. He provided a draft Communications Plan to be sent to all intramural scientists and noted that the Manuscript Clearance Form provided in the Intramural Research Sourcebook <http://www1.od.nih.gov/oir/sourcebook/oversight/pub-clear-form.htm> has been modified to note the requirement. Language is being developed that can be appended to the copyright forms that authors are required to sign to provide notification to the journal that all work coming out of the intramural program will be submitted to PubMedCentral. A system is being developed whereby intramural PIs will be notified upon submission of their Annual Reports if any of their publications has not yet been submitted. Questions were raised about how to handle manuscripts with both intramural authors and authors from other countries that are not bound by the law. Dr. Neil Thakur, who is developing a set of FAQs, will be the contact person for all questions, which can be sent to PublicAccess@nih.gov .
  5. Strategic Discussion (Principal SDs only): Dr. Gottesman reported on the activities of the two SD subcommittees that are meeting to discuss how to facilitate new science through (1) changes in the review process and (2) new initiatives. The NIH Reform Act has mandated establishment of a Scientific Management Review Board, that will look at the Intramural Research Program starting next fall. In preparation for that, OIR is compiling a set of Qs & As to provide factual information about the IRP and welcomes all suggestions from the SDs for materials to include. They were provided with data on PI turnover since 1990 as an example of the type of information that OIR believes will be useful.

     
    Return to top of page