RO1 grant = stamp of approval?

[TheMightyAngus]

My med school has a mandatory 3rd/4th year research requirement. I was discussing possible projects with the department chair of the specialty I want to pursue. He kept endorsing certain projects by whether or not they had RO1 funding. Is it a general rule that RO1 projects carry a certain cachet? Should this even factor into my decision making?

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[RxnMan]

My med school has a mandatory 3rd/4th year research requirement. I was discussing possible projects with the department chair of the specialty I want to pursue. He kept endorsing certain projects by whether or not they had RO1 funding. Is it a general rule that RO1 projects carry a certain cachet? Should this even factor into my decision making?

R01s mean money - they are (I believe) the largest amount of $ the NIH grants. And $ means freedom. They are extremely difficult to get (currently award rates are ~8%).

If I had the time and ability to spend time on a new research project, I would choose a place based on 3 things (in order of importance):

1) If the lab was well funded.
2) If I worked well with the PI
3) If the work was interesting

#1 allows you to do the projects. #2 gets you career mentoring, more learning, and the PI will be a better advocate for you, now and in the future. #3 is optional, and makes things a little more fun.

 

[Doodledog]

My med school has a mandatory 3rd/4th year research requirement. I was discussing possible projects with the department chair of the specialty I want to pursue. He kept endorsing certain projects by whether or not they had RO1 funding. Is it a general rule that RO1 projects carry a certain cachet? Should this even factor into my decision making?

The department chair is trying to motivate you towards an academic career. As such, he wants to place you in laboratories with substantial stable funding. However, what he sees as ideal may not be what is ideal for you. Traditionally, this has been ones in which the PI holds an R01. These are the primary individual research project grants given by the NIH and are the existing "standard" by which many evaluate the academic success of a laboratory.

Currently, this distinction is dubious at best and its relationship to your needs as a medical student looking for a "scholarly" senior project is even more questionable. The reason it is dubious is that much federal support that is quite substantial does not use the R01 mechanism. It uses various program project type grants and project center grants which go to multiple investigators to fund thematically linked research. The total of these grants will exceed any usual R01. Additionally, in an era of tight funding, other mechanisms, for example funding from non-profit disease oriented groups (American Heart Association, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation, American Diabetes Foundation and many, many others) can be substantial and are almost always part of the funding mix of large labs.

Sometimes, labs that are new or have lost R01 support will be supported entirely via these non-R01 type of mechanisms. That does not mean the lab is collapsing (although it could ) but simply may reflect the current status of the lab or the work it is doing. With R01 funding at 8-10% there are plenty of great research projects funded by other means including private corporate funding.

How does this relate to you? Well, if you are a new graduate student looking to build a thesis project or a career in a lab, picking R01 funded labs would be a reasonable, but potentially inaccurate screen for a stable lab that will support your work. If you were looking for a mentor for a first faculty award, this might also be true. But, you are not, you want to complete a research requirement in the field of your interest and enhance your chances of matching where you want in that field.

In that case, you are better off picking a lab based on the type of work they do - does it interest you?, Is the PI interested in your contribution? Of course, consider the ability to complete a project that will meet the modest goals (not those of a PhD student) in time for you to write your report. A younger faculty member, someone not three layers of grad students and post-docs removed from you, etc might be the better choice. A big R01 funded lab might also be the best choice, but for your situation, it would be a secondary consideration.

 

[RxnMan]

...However, what he sees as ideal may not be what is ideal for you...

I didn't think to respond about this, but it's abosolutely true: PIs, department chairs, etc., don't always have the same motivations that you do, and some don't even have the best intentions at heart. And labs supported by large group mechanisms exist too - I worked at a SPORE lab, and every grant renewal was a group effort by the 5-10 scientists I worked with.

The advice I gave above really is more for a grad student. For a med student, things change a bit, and since you probably come in with some money (via a summer grant, etc) you have more freedom to choose more towards good mentors.

 

[tbo]

I'll take a different skew here. I think whether a lab has an R01 is a good "first cut" at labs. In many of the research-mandatory schools, there's a boatload of solid labs that do interesting enough work that would excite any ambitious student, so while that's great theoretical advice, it's not fully practical.

An R01 -- for the most part -- legitimizes the science going on in the lab and that the PI can get funding, two of the most important traits of biomedical research. Sure, talk to as many PIs as you can, see what kind of dynamic you have with them, really see for yourself if what they're doing excites you, but as a practical start to your search, hitting up PIs with R01s will increase the odds that you can work with an established scientist (and hopefully mentor) that is doing competitive cutting-edge research.

With respect to non-R01 funding, be careful in not taking that too lightly. R01 by definition is an individual research award. That is to say the PI needs to come up with his/her own research ideas, write a compelling grant on it, and make it a winner in the face of national competition for those same funds. P or T awards (often institutional awards) could have PIs riding the institutional wave and not really coming up with their own ideas. I'm not saying don't work in those labs, just recognize the context of not having an individual award. NIH funding still reigns supreme in medical research (although the DOD is starting to pick up some amazing stuff) and R01 remains the gold standard in legitimizing a lab. Most of the top-flight researchers who get AHA awards or other specialty awards also have R01s, so I think that's a good first cut at labs.