Research News
June 2007 Issue
Table of Contents:
NSF CAREER Proposal Solicitation Announced
Proposal and Award Information
NIH Revised Notice of Award Letter
Welcome To Our New Research Coordinator
Grants.gov Information to Get You Started
NIH Reiterates Commitment to Protecting Sensitive Data
On Tuesday, April 24th the Graduate College sponsored the annual “IIT Research Day” event. IIT Research Day is an opportunity to celebrate the diverse research activities that take place on campus. The event began with a student poster competition. During the competition, 33 undergraduate and graduate students from 7 departments presented the results of their research. The winners of the poster competition were:
- Graduate Division
- Saket Mengle (CS)
- Shekhar Sarpotdar (MMAE)
- Lesias Abreu (ECE)
- Undergraduate Division
- Michael McCourt (AM)
- Marta Bastrzyk (AM)
- Zdrovka Cankova (BME)
After the student poster competition, for the first time as a part of Research Day, the Sigma Xi lecture was held. This year the lecture was given by Dr. Dagmar Ringe of Brandeis University. She spoke on the topic “Interrogating a Protein for Structure-Aided Drug Design.”
Finally, the event ended with the presentation of the student Sigma Xi Research Awards (see below for the list of winners), and the OSRP Awards. The winners of the OSRP awards were:
- Faculty Member Who Provided the Most Notice of Intent to Submit a Proposal
- Javad Abbasian (CHEE)
- Faculty Member Who Best Followed the 5-day Rule on a Consistent Basis
- Jialing Xiang (BCPS)
- Faculty Member with the Greatest Number of Awards in FY 2006
- Xiaoping Qian (MMAE)
- Faculty Member with the Greatest Number of Proposals in FY 2006
- Carlo Segre
The Graduate College is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2007 Sigma Xi Research Awards. The Sigma Xi Research Awards recognize exemplary accomplishments in research, scholarship, and creative activity by faculty members and graduate students at IIT. The recipients are:
Senior Faculty Division
Thomas Irving
Biological, Chemical, and Physical Sciences
Dr. Irving is a Professor of Biology, Director of the Center for Synchrotron Radiation Research and Instrumentation, and Director of the Biophysics Collaborative Access Team at Argonne National Lab. His research interests focus on the use of biophysical techniques to study the molecular basis for muscle physiology. One of this ongoing research projects is the study of insect flight muscles from living normal and mutant fruit flies during tethered flight. Dr. Irving has published more than 50 refereed articles and invites reviews, including four in the prestigious Nature journal.
Junior Faculty Division
Konstantinos Arfanakis
Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Arfanakis, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has over the past four years created a strong magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lab. The MRI lab has greatly supported and enhanced the capabilities of the Medical Imaging Research Center. Dr. Arfanakis’ research interests include the development of MRI data acquisition, image reconstruction, data analysis, and visualization techniques, and the application of these methods for the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological disease. The impact of his work is demonstrated by the fact that his papers have been cited more than 400 times.
Student Division
Haitao Chen
Biomedical Engineering
Mr. Chen, who will receive his doctoral degree in May of 2007, has been a Research Assistant since the fall of 2002. Over the past five years, he has published five papers as first author and has been a collaborating author on ten others. His research on the use of magnetic particles for detoxification of blood, or as drug carriers is extremely valuable and has been a novel contribution to both basic research and medicine.
Student Division
Hassan KhorashadiZadeh
Electrical and Computer Engineering
On May 10 th, Ali Cinar and David Baker led a team of IIT researchers to Washington D.C. to showcase IIT research. The event was held in the Rayburn House Office Building Foyer. Congressman Bobby Rush (IL-1) and several of his staff members attended the event. Also in attendance were staff members from the other members of the Illinois Congressional delegation, and IIT alumni from the DC area. IIT Day on Capitol Hill featured hand-on demonstrations of IIT research as well as posters that described the research in layperson terms. The themes for IIT Day on Capitol Hill 2007 were
Energy and Sustainability- National Infrastructure for Safety and Security
- Science, Engineering, and Technology for Health
- Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education
- Food Safety
- National Coalition for Manufacturing Innovation
- National Institute for Pharmaceutical Technology and Education
If you would like to use the posters for your event, please contact Robert Lapointe in the Graduate College.
If you have a topic suggestion for future events, please contact either Ganesh Raman or Robert Lapointe.
(1st two pictures taken by Mukesh Gadiya, 3rd picture taken by Amy Henderson)
Previously the National Science Foundation Grant and Proposal Guide (GPG) and the Grant Policy Manual (GPM) were two separate documents. NSF has now combined them into a single document called the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG)
The major changes that you need to be aware of are too numerous to list here.
For proposal preparation see: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/papp/gpg07140.pdf
For changes regarding the award see: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/papp/aag07140.pdfNSF CAREER Proposal Solicitation Announced
The National Science Foundation CAREER proposals deadline dates have been announced. The new policies and procedures are applicable. For more information see: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2005/nsf05579/nsf05579.pdf
PLEASE NOTE : Because this competition results in a large number of proposals generated by IIT faculty there are specific internal deadlines. For more information see:http://www.grad.iit.edu/research/OSRP/osrp.html
(An additional note: NIH renewal applications for R03, R21 and R33, R21/R33, R34 and R36 are due July 16 th via Grants.gov which falls in the middle of these deadlines).
If you plan to apply to the NSF CAREER proposals, please notify OSRP as soon as possible at 312-567-3035 or via email at osrp@iit.edu.You may have noticed that the detailed information regarding awards has not been publicized in a while. Due to restrictions by various sponsors, OSRP can no longer publicize detailed information regarding awards. In order to give you an idea of what our “numbers” are in regards to proposals and awards, we can provide this information.
NIH Revised Notice of Award Letter
NIH announces the revision of the Notice of Grant Award Letter, now known as the Notice of Award Letter (NoA). The revised NoA has several enhancements and a new look and feel. This NoA gives NIH the flexibility to make changes as needed and issue the NoA in PDF format resulting in a more user / reader friendly document.
For more information see:
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-060.html
Have you read the terms and conditions to your grant award? Your terms and conditions may not allow you to publicize your award without written permission. There may be terms and conditions which contain legal restrictions concerning who you can hire to work on, or even discuss your project with. With the increase in regulatory changes and compliance required by sponsors there have been many changes to the standard terms and conditions. Read, read, read!
We have had several faculty go on sabbatical, but have not informed OSRP. Please be sure to notify OSRP so that we can note it in the file. The regulations of federal grants state that any faculty member who is going to be absent for more than 3 months must notify the sponsor.
Welcome to our new Research Coordinator
Please join me in welcoming Deborah Wade who recently joined the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs (OSRP) as a Research Coordinator. Deborah comes to us from the Alzheimer’s Association, where she worked closely with donors.
As a faculty or staff member, there is not a registration process. However, you must download the PureEdge viewer software and a grant application in order to apply for a grant. To fill out a grant application, you will need to download the PureEdge Viewer, which is currently available for Windows users: http://www.grants.gov/DownloadViewer.
If you are a “Non-Windows User”, go to: http://www.grants.gov/MacSupport .
Note that grants.gov is NOT a web-based system like some other systems. Instead, you will fill out your grant application offline as though you were using a new word processor (called PureEdge Viewer) on your own computer. PureEdge Viewer is a Windows application that you must install on your computer. If you do not have a Windows PC, then you should follow the link below for “Non-Windows User”. When you are done entering all of your information, you will send the completed grant application file to OSRP.
Paper applications are no longer accepted by NIH. All proposals MUST be submitted electronically via Grants.gov. For more information go to http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/
NIH reiterates commitment to protecting sensitive data
This notice serves to reiterate the National Institutes of Health’s commitment to protect sensitive personal data and information used in research to advance the health and well being of all Americans. A recent security breach at a non-HHS Federal facility led to the loss of a portable media device which potentially contained sensitive information.
Recipients of NIH funded research are reminded of their responsibility to protect sensitive and confidential data as part of proper stewardship of federally funded research, and take reasonable and appropriate action to prevent the inadvertent disclosure, release or loss of sensitive personal information.
This may include the safeguarding of data and confidential information by encryption of portable electronic devices including laptops, CDs, disc drives, flash drives, etc; by a combination of access controls like password protection and other means; and by transmitting research data only when the security of the recipient’s systems are known and are satisfactory to the transmitter.
NIH recognizes that protecting research data and information can be particularly challenging and can create a burden that may be viewed as interfering with the research enterprise. It is not our intention to obstruct research, but to raise awareness of the situation and to have our grantees take reasonable measures to safeguard the information entrusted to them by research participants.Acknowledgements
Editor and Production Coordinator: Julia Chase chasej@iit.edu
Ali Cinar, Ph.D.
Dean of the Graduate College and
Vice Provost for Research
(312) 567-3637 cinar@iit.edu
Ganesh Raman, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Research
(312) 567-3554 raman@iit.edu
The Staff of Research Support Services:
Toni R. Allen
Associate Director
Office of Sponsored Research & Programs
(312) 567-3035 allen@iit.edu
Pamela Andrews
Associate Director
Office of Sponsored Research & Programs
(312) 567-3022 andrewsp@iit.edu
Glenn Krell, M.P.A, C.R.A
Director
Office of Research Compliance and Proposal Development
(312) 567-7141 krell@iit.edu
Robert Lapointe, M.B.A
Manager, Research Marketing & Business Development
Graduate College
(312) 567-7135 lapointe@iit.edu
Domenica G. Pappas, C.R.A
Director
Office of Sponsored Research & Programs
(312) 567-3035 pappas@iit.edu
Flo Redmond, M.B.A
Associate Director
(312) 567-3340 redmond@iit.edu