RECENT E-STRATUM NEWSLETTERS

E-Stratum is AAA's members-only e-mail newsletter. The latest issue is posted here soon after distribution and remains online for approximately two months. AAA welcomes your feedback on E-Stratum and all other AAA programs and services. June 23rd, 2009 | June 9th, 2009 | May 11th, 2009

Take advantage
of us!! 
Apply for an AAA Outreach Grant.
Maximum support is $3,000.
Deadline: August 1

Save these dates!
AAA Annual Meeting at EB 2010
April 24-28
Anaheim, CA

AAA's Education & Teaching Tools
are always at your fingertips!

Check the latest updates in our listing of NIH funding opportunities in AAA research areas, including all the new economic stimulus programs!

June 23rd, 2009

Everyone was a winner in our last E-Stratum Name Game!  Congratulations to Javier Goldberg, who alerted Heather Smith that her name was embedded in E-Stratum.  Javier won a Student Membership Gift Card, which he passed on to Silvia Quinzio so she can join AAA.  And Heather contacted us in time to be entered in our next drawing for a free year’s membership.  You could be this week’s winner!
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1. Before you read on, have a look to your left and note  that Outreach Grant applications are due August 1st and Young Investigator Award nominations are due August 15th.  Don’t procrastinate Jaime!
2. Effective with the August 8th submission date, all grant applications for the Individual National Research Service Award (NRSA) Fellowships    (F-series) will require electronic submission through Grants.gov.  Several new business processes are also being implemented.
3. New procedures described in the latest issue of NIH's Peer Review Notes include reviewing applications in order of best to worst, based on their preliminary scores; expediting the review of R01 applications from new investigators; and allowing those who review 6 or more times in 18 months to submit R01, R21, and R34 applications any time during the review cycle.
4. There’s much more to Anaheim than Disneyland!  For starters, the AAA Annual Meeting/EB 2010 will feature a Biological Anthropology Mini-meeting and a keynote address by Leroy Hood, president of the Institute for Systems Biology.  Mark your calendar for April 24-28 and watch for further details.
5. Folks have told us that our Resource Links are the best part of the AAA Web site.  But they’re only as good as you are…in sending us the latest & greatest URLs.  Know a good anatomy-related link?  Send it to us Sanchez.
6. If you have some good news to share about how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has helped your & your colleagues further biomedical research, improve public health, and stimulate the economy, NIAID would like to hear about it.  For example, your ARRA success story might illustrate how the funds enabled you to keep your lab intact, hire a promising young scientist, expand your research, or advance science.  Other institutes are likely to follow suit.
7. In “From Bench To Bedside,” Newsweek columnist Sharon Begley argues that “forces within academic medicine…(inadvertently) conspire to impede research aimed at a clinical payoff.”
8. The National Academy of Sciences is seeking nominations for the 2010 Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal, a $25,000 prize awarded for important contributions to the medical sciences.  Nominations are due by September 15th.
9. The United States Bone and Joint Decade (USBJD Research Committee) offers a grant mentoring program to provide early-career clinical investigators an opportunity to work with experienced researchers to assist them in securing funding and other survival skills required for pursuing an academic career.  Applications are due July 15th.
10. HHMI has launched its third nationwide competition to find 12 colleges and universities to join the Science Education Alliance (SEA), an effort to engage students through authentic research experiences at the start of their academic careers.  Any four-year academic institution in the U.S. can apply if they are committed to providing research opportunities for beginning science students.
11. Want to know more about the hippopotamus?  Check out the article by Ken Yoshimura et al. in the July issue of The Anatomical Record.
12. Looking for an answer to the age-old question: What are the developmental mechanisms that control intrinsic organ size?  Find out from Madhuri Kango-Singh  & Amit Singh  in July’s Developmental Dynamics.
13. What’s in a name?  That’s the question posed by Shakespeare and also by Jeff Laitman in the May/June issue of Anatomical Sciences Education in regard to the value of standardizing anatomical terminology.

Back again in early July.  Enjoy the Fourth!

AAA Staff
Andrea Pendleton—Executive Director
Carlin Bokal—Education & Professional Development
Melissa Kraft—Membership/Marketing/Website
Rachel Yablonowitz—Meetings/Awards
Liz Kreuzburg—Accounting/Address Changes/ Journal Subscriptions

Ready to publish your latest findings?

What part of the body are these found in?  The nose knows!!
Find out in ArtPix in  Developmental Dynamics

AAA: An Awarding Association 
Nominations are due August 15th for
AAA Young Investigator Awards
«R.R. Bensley Award in Cell Biology
«C.J. Herrick Award in Neuroanatomy
«H.W. Mossman Award in Developmental Biology
«AAA Morphological Sciences Award

Take advantage
of us!! 
Apply for an AAA Outreach Grant.
Maximum support is $3,000.
Deadline: August 1

Mark your calendar!
AAA Annual Meeting at EB 2010
April 24-28
Anaheim, CA

AAA's Education & Teaching Tools
are always at your fingertips!

Check the latest updates in our listing of NIH funding opportunities in

June 9th, 2008

Congratulations and thank you to Wenhua Liu, who recently won a Student Membership Gift Card in our E-Stratum Name Game and passed it on to Craig Shaun Wang.  You could be this week’s winner!
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1. Feeling lucky?  NIH has received 20,000 Challenge Grant applications for the approximately 200 grants that will be funded, so your chance of getting funded is 1 in 100. According to a June 8 NIH press release, this is approximately equal to the total number of applications NIH receives in one of the agency’s three major review rounds each year.
2. Attention all department chairs!  If you’ve encouraged your faculty to submit a Challenge Grant application with just 1 in 100 odds, then make sure that any postdoc in your department who is among AAA’s 84 postdoctoral members applies for one of our three $20,000 Postdoctoral Fellowships, because the odds of winning are much greater.  Applications are due October 1.  And if your postdocs don’t belong to AAA yet, we can fix that easily!
3. If you’re thinking of recycling your Challenge Grant application into an R01, think again.  Given the large number of applications submitted under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), NIH decided it was a good time to remind researchers and would-be researchers that “The NIH and Public Health Service have had long-standing policies not to review the same or very similar application more than once.”  Have a close look at NIH guidelines and exceptions Heather before resubmitting!
4. Wondering if all the ARRA paperwork warrants adding direct administrative costs to your proposed budget?  Wonder no more – the answer from NIH is “NO.”  A new FAQ cautions:  “It has been determined that ARRA requirements do not provide sufficient justification to support the provision of direct costs for administrative support in addition to the Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs in the awarded budget.”  Check the full FAQ for details.
5. Good news on the visa front!  According to a June 3 article in the New York Times, the State Department has finally brought in extra staff and has revised procedures to “speed up the delay-plagued visa process for foreign graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.”
6. A new report entitled Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians, issued by an expert committee convened by the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), for the first time defines scientific competencies for future medical school graduates and for undergraduate students who want to pursue a career in medicine.
7. Planning an educational or scientific program that could use some funding?  AAA’s Outreach Grants provide up to $3,000.  All we need by August 1st is a 2-page proposal with project details, goals, budget & expected audience. AAA will support research meetings for up to three years.
8. If you know someone who is a rising star in cell biology, developmental biology, morphological sciences, or neuroanatomy, it’s time to nominate that soon-to-be-famous investigator for one of AAA’s Young Investigator Awards. Nominations are due August 15; the nomination form is now available and Smith easy to complete!
9. Nearly everything you ever wanted to know about Xenopus can be found in the special June issue of Developmental Dynamics edited by Kristen L. Kroll and H. Joseph Yost.
10. The May/June issue of Anatomical Sciences Education features an article by John P. Fraher & Darrell J.R. Evans describing the joint ASGBI-AAA program to train anatomy educators.  Contact Carlin Bokal if you’re interested in participating or want more information.
11. Hear ye, hear ye!  Check out the June issue of The Anatomical Record for an article by E. Christopher Kirk, Ashley D. Gosselin-Ildari on “Cochlear Labyrinth Volume and Hearing Abilities in Primates.”Reminder:  Speaking of June issues, your June AAA Newsletter will arrive later than usual so that we can bring you reports on many of our Annual Meeting sessions.  Look for it in late June/early July.

AAA Staff
Andrea Pendleton - Executive Director
Carlin Bokal—Education & Professional Development
Melissa Kraft—Membership/Marketing/Website
Rachel Yablonowitz—Meetings/Awards
Liz Kreuzburg—Accounting/Address Changes

Ready to publish your latest findings?

Who might this be?  Find out in ArtPix in  

AAA's Education & Teaching Tools
are always at your fingertips!

Check the latest updates in our listing of NIH funding opportunities in AAA research areas, including all the new economic stimulus programs.

Mark your calendar:
AAA Annual Meeting at EB 2010.
April 24-28
Anaheim, CA

May 11th, 2009

Congratulations and thank you to Fenglei He and Jon Jackson, who recently won Student Membership Gift Cards in our E-Stratum Name Game and passed them on to Wei Xiong and Sarmad Al-Marsoummi.  You could be this week’s winner!
_________________________

1. The submissions deadline for NIH’s Grand Opportunities or “GO” grants has been extended to May 29 due to a planned Grants.gov update from May 22-26.  Stay tuned for further possible extensions!
2. If you need to document changes in scope for a proposed research project, be sure to follow the new NIH business process for submitting revised project summary/abstracts, specific aims, and/or public health relevance Bishop statements.
3. NIH is requesting public comments on draft guidelines for human stem cell research.  You have until May 26 to get your 2¢ in!
4. FASEB’s updated state-by-state PowerPoint slideshows provide targeted information on how NIH-funded basic research improves health.  These slides are a great resource if you’re making a Joanna presentation—especially to your local congress- person!
5. Any thoughts about basic or clinical research discoveries that have had a demonstrable societal impact, such as by the development of a current therapy or diagnostic technology?  FASEB is seeking topics for its popular Breakthroughs in Bioscience series.  Contact AAA if you have an idea you’d like to see featured.  Ideal topics show the importance of federal funding, highlight a compelling “story behind the science,” and, if possible, illustrate the importance of animal research.
6. If Twitter is a regular part of your communications routine, FASEB invites you stay on top of public policy issues by following FASEB’s tweets.
7. Have a look at the May issue of Developmental Dynamics to see what Laurent Laguerre and colleagues have to say about “Mitotic Patterns in the Migrating Lateral Line Cells of Zebrafish Embryos.”
8. Barry Mitchell and colleagues provide “A Cross-cultural Comparison of Anatomy Learning,” comparing learning styles and strategies in British and Chinese medical schools in the latest issue of Anatomical Sciences Education.
9. This month’s issue of The Anatomical Record features “A Histological and Immunohistochemical Analysis of Lymphoid Tissues of the Tasmanian Devil” by Alexandre Kreiss and colleagues.

FYI:  The June issue of your AAA Newsletter will arrive later than usual so that we can bring you reports on many of our Annual Meeting sessions.  Look for it in late June/early July.

AAA Staff
Andrea Pendleton—Executive Director
Carlin Bokal—Education & Professional Development
Melissa Kraft—Membership/Marketing/Website
Rachel Yablonowitz—Meetings/Awards
Liz Kreuzburg—Accounting/Address Changes/Journal Subscriptions

Ready to publish your latest findings?

Who the devil is this?  Find out in