Extramural Policy and Review Activities

Receipt, Referral, and Review

NIDA received 1266 applications, including both primary and dual assignments for which the Office of Extramural Affairs (OEA) managed the programmatic referral process during this Council cycle. Of these, NIDA received the primary assignment on 825 applications.

OEA arranged and managed 18 grant review meetings in which 309 applications were evaluated. OEA's reviews included applications in chartered, standing review committees and Special Emphasis Panels (SEPs). In addition, OEA's Contracts Review Branch (CRB) arranged and managed 11 contract proposal reviews, 2 concept reviews, and reviews of 143 applications to the Loan Repayment Program.

NIDA's chartered committees consist of NIDA-E (Treatment Review Committee), NIDA-F (Health Services Review Committee), NIDA-L (Medications Development Committee), and NIDA-K (Training Committee). In addition to meetings of each of these committees, OEA staff held 14 Special Emphasis Panels for a variety of reasons:

Conflicts with the chartered committees
Center Grant Applications
Program Project Grant applications
Behavioral Science Track Award for Rapid Transition (B/START)
Cutting Edge Basic Research Awards (CEBRA)
Imaging Science Track Awards for Research Transition (I/START)
Conference Grants (R13)
2 Special Emphasis Panels that reviewed RFA submissions.

OEA managed the following RFA reviews:

• DA05-001: The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network
• DA05-003: Developmental Centers for Translational Research on the Clinical Neurobiology of Drug Addiction

Completed Reviews from the Contracts Review Branch since the last Council are as follows:

Non-R&D Contract Reviews

• N01DA-5-9909: Residential Research Support Services

R&D Contract Reviews

• N01DA-5-8855: Statistical Analysis in Support of NIDA's DPMC Clinical Trials

SBIR Phase I and Phase II

• N43DA-5-5529: Topic 060 Develop New Technologies for Screening and Assessing Drug Abuse and Matching Patients with Appropriate Treatment Services
• N43DA-5-5530: Topic 073 Internet-based Application of Existing/Proven Therapies
• N43DA-5-1120: Topic 070 Develop Research Training Modules for International Application
• N43DA-5-1121: Topic 029 Development of Science Education Materials or Programs
• N43DA-5-5531: Topic 028 Prevention Training
• N43DA-5-7751: Topic 075 Real-time Data Collection Paired with Ecological Momentary Assessment
• N43DA-5-8858: Topic 071 Microarray Data Warehouse for Addiction Research
• N44DA-5-5527: Topic 061 Multi-Problem Youth Screening and Assessment Package
• N44DA-5-7744: Topic 068 Human Factors Analysis in Virtual Reality (VR) for Burn Treatment

R&D Concept Reviews

• N01DA-5-9909C: Residential Research Support Services
• N01DA-5-8856C: Medical Writing, Report Preparation and Project Management

Extramural Outreach

Dr. Mark Swieter, OEA, gave a talk on Friday, March 18, 2005 to the NIDA Humphrey and INVEST fellows titled, "The NIH Grants Enterprise: Referral and Review.

Dr. Khursheed Asghar, OEA, delivered a seminar on March 3, 2005, at the Morgan State University in Baltimore entitled Research Grant Opportunities for New Investigators at NIDA.

Dr. Asghar gave an invited talk on April 26, 2005, at a Special Populations Research Development Seminar Series Workshop sponsored by NIDA's Office of Special Populations; the title was, "Research Grant Opportunities for New Investigators and the Review Process at NIDA".

Dr. Rita Liu, OEA, continues to work with NIMH and NINDS to co-organize a monthly seminar series in 2005 on Neuroimaging. The topics will encompass structural MRI, computational tools, DTI (diffuse tensor imaging) and tract tracing, image guided surgery, imaging developing brain, and ethics in neuroimaging. The series is meant to educate NIH staffers to this rapidly growing field.

Dr. Teri Levitin, Directorm, OEA, continues her work as the NIDA Research Integrity Officer and representative to the NIH on these matters.

Dr. Levitin organized and chaired a discussion hour on the NIH grant review process at the meeting of the Society for Research on Child Development, April 7-10, 2005. Representatives from several ICs participated in providing information about extramural grant review policies and procedures.

Dr. Levitin continues to participate in a number of trans-NIH committees, including the NIH Director's Pioneer Award Committee, the NIH Director's Pioneer Award Evaluation Advisory Committee, a working group of the DEAS advisory committee, the EPMC work group to implement the Office of Human Subjects Research Guidelines, the EPMC workgroup on NIH Advisory Councils as well as the EPMC.

Dr. Levitin is also serving on the Society for Research on Adolescent's Committee on Research, Policy and Public Information.

Staff Training and Development

The OEA Symposium Series, a forum for staff training and sharing of ideas and information, continued through the winter and spring. Topics addressed have included: Implementation of NIH Guidance on OHRP Guidance on Human Research involving coded private information and biological specimens; Policy on Enhancing Public Access to Archived Publications Resulting from NIH-funded Research Resources for new Investigators; Revised PHS 398, including more on revisions to Human Subjects section; Revised Policy for applications that include consortium/contractual F&A costs; Activities to promote research collaborations; Requests for information in the NIH Guide; and "Working smarter not harder: eRA Commons Program Official's Module and other tips."