“We are trying to look at all possible sources of funding to maintain our research,” Dr. Bridges says. “We try to make sure that we have sufficient funds for a rainy-day approach because it is raining out there with the current economic situation.”
VA funding of research grants has been a “godsend” at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, according to David B. Corry, MD, chief of the section of immunology, allergy, and rheumatology. At Baylor, faculty members are encouraged to consider developing their career within the context of the VA system because of the strength of the VA research program. “It doubles their chances of getting a grant by applying to both the VA and the NIH,” Dr. Corry says.
Young investigators and faculty also should apply to private agencies and institutions for funding. The Biology of Inflammation Center, which Dr. Corry directs at Baylor, is raising funds through private philanthropy to support rheumatology research. “Increasingly, the research centers, regardless of the discipline, are going to have to be very aggressive to make up what looks to be a very long-term shortfall of funding through the NIH. We are very aggressively seeking to build our war chest.”
The University of Washington last year partnered with a private biotechnology company, Resolve Therapeutics, LLC, that is also helping rheumatology research within the division weather a time of dwindling federal dollars for research. The company and the university are working on development of a compound called RSVL-125, a potential treatment for lupus that Dr. Elkon and Jeffrey Ledbetter, PhD, a research professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine, created in their laboratories. “That [partnership] has been a lifeline for us, getting us to where we have continued resources to do research,” Dr. Elkon says.
The ACR Research and Education Foundation also funds a variety of rheumatology research and training efforts through its grants and awards program, including bridge funding for investigators applying for NIH or VA grants, career development grants, fellowship awards, and funding for rheumatoid arthritis research, among others.
Sharon L. Kolasinski, MD, is head of the division of rheumatology at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, a new medical school in Camden, N.J., that will open its doors to its first class in 2012. Uncertainty about NIH funding is a “huge concern,” and young investigators will be encouraged to start applying for grants “from the day we open our doors,” Dr. Kolasinski says. Cutbacks in NIH funding mean that her department, like those of her colleagues around the country, will need to seek support from foundations and nonprofit organizations as well as partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry, she says.
Striving for the Perfect Grant Application
According to the NIH Office of Extramural Research, “budget concerns have resulted in no specific changes in the processes used by the NIH for approving applications or making funding decisions.” However, investigators and faculty understand that with fewer funding dollars and fewer Requests for Applications (RFAs) being issued by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), grant applications will need to approach perfection to be successful.
