Essential Policy and Procedure Updates

DHS Chemical Standard Compliance Inventory

The inventory has been completed.  According to Kim Auletta, 2100 chemicals were reported (18,000 lbs. of chemicals) of which 2 need to be reported. Thank you for your participation.  For more information, please contact Kim Auletta 632-3032 or 632-6410 or kim.auletta@stonybrook.edu in the Department of Environmental Health and Safety.

RESEARCH COMPLIANCE UPDATE

Research Involving Human Subjects Update

Increase in Rates for IRB/Institutional Review of Pharmaceutical/Industry-sponsored studies:
Effective April 1, 2008:

  • - The IRB/Institutional fee for full committee review by CORIHS of industry-initiated/ sponsored studies will now be $2750.00. This fee covers initial review, 4 continuing reviews, plus all associated reviews of amendments and unanticipated problems (e.g., serious adverse events etc). Charges for expedited review by CORIHS of such studies will remain at $950. 
  • - The Institutional fee for such studies reviewed by Chesapeake Research Review, Inc. will now be $900.

Chesapeake Research Review IRB has gone Electronic!
Effective immediately:
Submissions to CRRI IRB (for pharma/industry-sponsored studies) must be done via their new web-based system, CIRBI (“Center for IRB Intelligence”). We are in the process of updating our website to contain FAQ’s and other information pertaining to this new process. In the meantime, you are encouraged to go onto www.cirbi.net and sign up (left-hand column).

Please be sure to sit in on one of the upcoming webinars on use of the CIRBI system.

Once you register for the web meeting above, please check for confirmation email with instructions on how to join.

Research Involving Animal Subjects Update:
The IACUC has developed a new, simplified application for studies only involving observational procedures. It is available on line at   http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/animforms/ObservationalFieldStudiesApplication.doc

Research Involving Recombinant DNA and/or Gene Transfer Technology
You must apply to, and receive, approval (or confirmation of exemption) from SBU’s Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) prior to commencing with the following types of research:

Recombinant DNA research involves molecules that:
(a) are constructed outside living cells by joining natural or synthetic DNA segments to DNA molecules that can replicate in a living cell, or
(b) result from the replication of those described in (1).

Human gene transfer research involves the deliberate transfer of recombinant DNA, or DNA or RNA derived from recombinant DNA into the somatic cells of human subjects.

All the information you need regarding this requirement (including policies, procedures and applications) is provided here.

The federal Office of Biotechnology Activities (OBA), within the National Institutes of Health has jurisdiction over recombinant DNA and gene transfer activities conducted at SBU. Their guidelines and IBC requirements are applicable to all faculty, staff, students, and users of the facilities of this University who propose and conduct research involving recombinant DNA, regardless of source of funding. See IBC policy for approval requirements for activities conducted off-site at collaborating Institutions.

Recently, NIH issued a notice reminding the grantee community of the principles and requirements of the NIH Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant DNA Molecules.
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-07-096.html

Please review this notice for confirmation of the need for compliance in this area. If you have any questions, please contact Judy Matuk at Judy.Matuk@stonybrook.edu, or 632-9036.

NIH APPLICATION ANNOUNCEMENTS

NIH has made several announcements in the NIH Guide regarding PHS application kits. Please see the items below for more details.

NOTE:  The New forms will be REQUIRED starting in May (applications not using the new forms will be returned without review!). For more information see: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-028.html

Modified Application Submission, Referral and Review for Appointed NIH Study Section Members (NOT-OD-08-026)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-026.html

NIH Policy on Late Submission of Grant Applications (NOT-OD-08-027)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-027.html

Revised PHS 398 (DHHS Public Health Service Grant Application) Now Available (NOT-OD-08-028)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-028.html

Revised PHS 2271, PHS 3734, and HHS 568 Forms Now Available (NOT-OD-08-029)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-029.html

Revised PHS 2590 (DHHS Public Health Service Noncompeting Continuation Progress Report) Now Available (NOT-OD-08-030)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-030.html

Appendices to Paper PHS 398 (DHHS Public Health Service Grant Application) to be Submitted on CD (NOT-OD-08-031)
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-031.html

NIH REVISES PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY

NIH has changed its policy concerning the posting of publications resulting from NIH funding in the NIH Pub Med Central system. Until now participation has been voluntary. It is now mandatory. Please see the NIH Guide notice for more information.

The changes in policy correspond to recently enacted legislation, which reads "The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, that the NIH shall implement the public access policy
in a manner consistent with copyright law." 

Under the policy notice:
1. The NIH Public Access Policy applies to all peer-reviewed articles that arise, in whole or in part, from direct costs funded by NIH, or from NIH staff, that are accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008.
2. Institutions and investigators are responsible for ensuring that any publishing or copyright agreements concerning submitted articles fully comply with the Policy.
3. PubMed Central (PMC) is the NIH digital archive of full-text, peer-reviewed journal articles.  Its content is publicly accessible and integrated with other databases (see: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/).
4. The final, peer-reviewed manuscript includes all graphics and supplemental materials that are associated with the article. 
5. Beginning May 25, 2008, anyone submitting an application, proposal or progress report to the NIH must include the PMC or NIH Manuscript Submission reference number when citing applicable articles that arise from their NIH funded research. This policy includes applications submitted to the NIH for the May 25, 2008 due date and subsequent due dates.
<http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-033.html>

The Scientific Council of the European Research Council Guidelines For Open Access

The guidelines require that all peer-reviewed publications from ERC-funded research projects be deposited when published into an appropriate research repository where available, such as PubMed Central, ArXiv or an institutional repository, and subsequently made Open Access within 6 months of publication.

RelatedLink: http://tinyurl.com/35o6ch

NOTICE REGARDING THE APPLICABILITY OF THE FEDERAL INFORMATION SECURITY MANAGEMENT ACT TO NIH GRANTEES

Notice Number: NOT-OD-08-032             Release Date: January 9, 2008

Issued by National Institutes of Health (NIH), (http://www.nih.gov)

NIH is providing this notice to inform its grantee organizations of the recent Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced policy regarding applicability of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) to grantees.

All information systems, electronic or hard copy which contain federal data need to be protected from unauthorized access. This also applies to information associated with NIH grants and contracts.

Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have instituted laws, policies and directives that govern the creation and implementation of federal information security practices that pertain specifically to grants and contracts. The current regulations are pursuant to the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), Title III of the E-Government Act of 2002 Pub. L. No. 107-347 (beginning on page 48).

Given the nature of the relationship between the NIH and its grantees (which differs from a contractual relationship), the question arose as to whether data collected in the course of NIH-funded research through grants and cooperative agreements fall under the FISMA regulations.  The applicability of FISMA to grantees funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (including the NIH) has been addressed by the HHS Chief Information Security Officer in an October 29 memo clarifying federal regulations governing the management and protection of the data the federal government collects for grants.

The memo states that:

“FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act) applies to grantees only when they collect, store, process, transmit or use information on behalf of HHS or any of its component organizations.

In all other cases, FISMA is not applicable to recipients of grants, including cooperative agreements with grantees. The grantee retains the original data and intellectual property, and is responsible for the security of this data, subject to all applicable laws protecting security, privacy and research. If and when information collected by a grantee is provided to HHS, responsibility for the protection of the HHS copy of the information is transferred to HHS and it becomes the agency’s responsibility to protect that information and any derivative copies as required by FISMA.”

Inquiries

If you have any questions about whether the data collected in the course of your NIH-funded research fall under FISMA please contact Sally Rockey at 301-496-1096 or srockey@od.nih.gov

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR AWARD INTERFACE (PIAI) TRAINING SESSIONS

For Projector Directors who are new to The Research Foundation’s Business System, or staff  who’d like a better understanding of the Principal Investigator Award Interface (PIAI), the Office of Grants Management is offering 90-minute training sessions.  The PIAI application is considered to be a superior and more user friendly information interface for inquiry only access, while Oracle is viewed primarily as a transaction processing system for the administrative departments that handle your financial transactions. 

The sessions will be held on Thursday, March 27th, and Friday, April 18th.  All will take place in the OVPR Conference Room, W5510 Frank Melville Library from 9:00-10:30 a.m.

To register for one of these sessions, please send an email to Marie Bilbao in the Office of Grants Management at marie.bilbao@stonybrook.edu

ADMINISTRATIVE HELP FOR MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR GRANT PROPOSALS

Strengthening multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research at Stony Brook University is the primary responsibility of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Research. Specifically, the main objective of this office is to encourage, orchestrate and support the creative research activities of our faculty, especially in the context of facilitating greater collaboration across different disciplines and to help those teams develop and successfully submit large multidisciplinary proposals. 

Multidisciplinary proposals are often more complex and difficult to compile.  If you are contemplating writing a multi-million dollar (at least $1M per year) multidisciplinary grant proposal but lack the administrative support to pull it together, our office can provide administrative staff assistance. We can help you coordinate proposal meetings, enlist collaborators, manage and prepare proposal documents and applications, etc. 

Please review our website at http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/workgroups.html and contact Michael Hadjiargyrou, Associate VP for Research (Michael.Hadjiargyrou@stonybrook.edu), or Stefanie Massucci, Multidisciplinary Project Associate (smassucci@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) for more details.

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Funding Opportunities

NEW SEED GRANT - Multidisciplinary research Initiation Grants (MIG) Awards

The Office of the Vice President for Research at Stony Brook University announces the creation of a new Seed Grant program (MIG Awards) designed to increase multidisciplinary research activity.  These awards are specifically designed to support NEW collaborations among faculty from the various Stony Brook University (SBU) Departments/Schools as well as Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).  Research activity can include projects dealing with basic science studies all the way to applied, translational, and clinical ones.  Up to four $25,000 awards will be funded for the duration of one year.  Awardees will utilize these funds to establish NEW collaborative research projects with the potential to advance multidisciplinary research. 

GENERAL GUIDELINES AND ELIGIBILITY
Proposals must clearly demonstrate the potential collaborative research project.  To emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of the research, applications must include a minimum of two faculty members from different SBU Schools, and/or participating institutions BNL/CSHL, with clear delineation of project responsibility.  These collaborations must be NEW, not simply a continuation of existing ones. 

Completed applications should be submitted electronically in PDF format to Stefanie Massucci at Stefanie.Massucci@Stonybrook.edu, and must be received by Friday, March 28, 2008 at 5:00pm, with an anticipated start date of May 1st, 2008.  Applications received after the deadline will be returned without further consideration.  Eligibility for program funding is limited to investigators with faculty level appointments (or appointments in progress) at the time of submission. 

Questions regarding the application process should be addressed to Stefanie Massucci at Stefanie.Massucci@Stonybrook.edu. 

FUNDING CRITERIA
Proposal evaluation will be conducted by senior faculty and administrators from the Long Island science community.  Reviewers will be asked to assess the scientific merit and significance of the science, and the future funding potential from state/federal agencies.  

The full instructions and downloadable application form are available here. The budget may not exceed $25,000 for one year. See application for more details.

NIH seeks applicants for New Innovator award

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) are seeking applicants for the NIH Director's New Innovator Award. The program supports creative scientists who propose highly innovative-and often unconventional-approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research. Women and members of underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply.

The New Innovator Award is open to new and early career research investigators only. It provides $1.5 million in direct costs over five years. Applications will be accepted March 3-31.

Upcoming Funding Opportunities

You can now access our new weekly Funding Opportunities Bulletin at http://www.stonybrook.edu/fundingopportunities. Here, you can search for Funding Opportunities by discipline, deadlines and keywords.

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News and Events

News

$60 MILLION GIFT FROM RENOWNED FINANCIER AND FORMER MATH CHAIR JAMES SIMONS AND WIFE MARILYN, A PH.D. ALUMNA

Dr. Jim Simons, the prominent financier and mathematician who, as chairperson, built Stony Brook University’s Mathematics Department into one of the top-ranked in the nation, and his wife Marilyn, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University and is president of the Simons Foundation, announced today that the Foundation is donating $60 million to Stony Brook – the largest gift in its history. It is also the largest gift ever given to any one of the 64 institutions in the State University of New York system. 

The new gift will be used for the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook, where Mr. Simons served as chairman of the mathematics department from 1968 to 1976 and built it into one of the top departments in the country.

The article about James Simons and the announcement can be read here.

GIANT “FROG FROM HELL” FOSSIL FOUND IN MADAGASCAR

According to The National Science Foundation, a team of researchers, led by Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause, has discovered the remains in Madagascar of what may be the largest frog ever to exist.

The 16-inch, 10-pound ancient frog, scientifically named Beelzebufo, or devil frog, links a group of frogs that lived 65 to 70 million years ago with frogs living today in South America.

Discovery of the voracious predatory fossil frog -- reported on-line this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) -- is significant in that it may provide direct evidence of a one-time land connection between Madagascar, the largest island off Africa's southeast coast, and South America.

To identify Beelzebufo and determine its relationship to other frogs, Krause collaborated with fossil frog experts Susan Evans, lead author of the PNAS article, and Marc Jones of the University College London.  The authors concluded that the new frog represents the first known occurrence of a fossil group in Madagascar with living representatives in South America.

The research was also funded by the National Geographic Society.

The complete story and more information can be found here.

RESEARCHERS DISCOVER A FAMILY OF LIVER CANCER GENES

An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Stony Brook University Medical Center has identified a family of genes linked to the development of liver cancer. Principal Investigator Wadie F. Bahou, M.D., Professor of Medicine and Genetics, and colleagues discovered in a mouse model that the loss of one specific gene (Iqgap2) in this family causes Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). They also found that when another member of the gene family (Iqgap1) is turned on, a more aggressive form of the disease occurs. Their findings are reported in the March issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Dr. Bahou says that the findings regarding the two genes demonstrate that both genes could serve as a basis for developing important targets for early diagnosis and/or treatment of HCC. The disease accounts for more than 80 percent of all liver cancer in humans, which causes death in 500,000 to 1 million adults annually worldwide. Treatment for advanced HCC is often ineffective. A recently approved chemotherapy drug developed to treat metastatic liver cancer provides disease stabilization but not a cure.

The complete article is available here.

ANTHONY R. LUBINSKY RECEIVES ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY R & D 100 AWARD

The Ultra-High-Resolution Mammography System (UHRMS) developed by Stefan Schweizer (University of Paderborn, Germany), Anthony R. Lubinsky (SUNY, Stony Brook) and NE’s Jacqueline A. Johnson has just been given the prestigious R&D100 award. It offers doctors a low-cost, high-quality alternative to selenium based digital radiography (DR), which is now the most popular mammographic technology at leading hospitals. UHRMS represents a form of computed radiography (CR), which means that instead of using traditional x-ray film to capture images, doctors can use a glass-ceramic imaging plate that can then be fed into a computer and digitized. Like any imaging modality, CR is constantly evolving as vendors improve its technical performance. But the fundamental underlying technology behind CR -- a storage phosphor material, typically a powder, based on a formulation of barium fluorobromide -- hasn't changed radically in 25 years. The award winning technology dispenses with the powder-based storage phosphor, and instead uses a glass-ceramic plate.

The complete article is available here.

DR. DEREK TEANEY IS THE RECIPIENT OF A SLOAN FOUNDATION RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

Dr. Derek Teaney, who joined SBU’s faculty as Assistant Professor in September 2007 on a joint position with the RIKEN BNL Research Center (RBRC), see http://www.bnl.gov/riken/, was notified yesterday that he is the recipient of a Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.  Derek is a member of the Nuclear Theory Group who received his Ph.D. from the Department of Physics and Astronomy in 2001 and was a postdoc here in 2004-6 after being a postdoc at RBRC during 2001-4. 

The award letter from the Foundation describes it as "an extraordinarily competitive award, involving nominations for most of the very best scientists of your generation from the United States and Canada."  It carries a grant of $50,000 for the two-year period 2008-10.  See http://www.sloan.org/programs/scitech_fellowships.shtml for more information about the Fellowship, including lists of winners for this year and prior years back to 2005 as well as a list of 35 past Sloan Fellows who have become Nobel Laureates.  Last summer Derek received an Outstanding Junior Investigator Award (with research funding) from the Department of Energy. 

DR. RAMA CALAGA RECEIVES AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY/DIVISION OF PHYSICS OF BEAMS DOCTORAL RESEARCH AWARD

Dr. Rama Calaga became Dr. because of the Ph.D. dissertation "Linear Beam Dynamics and Ampere Class Superconducting RF Cavities" he wrote and defended in May 2006.  He did this as a graduate student in the department of Physics and Astronomy working on problems in accelerator physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he was jointly supervised by Dr. Steve Peggs (who is in the Superconducting Magnet Division at BNL, is Program Leader of LARP [the US LHC Accelerator Research Program], and is also affiliated with the Technical Division at Fermilab) and Dr. Ilan Ben-Zvi (Associate Chair for Superconducting Accelerator R&D in the Collider-Accelerator Department).

Steve and Ilan are both Adjunct Professors in the department of Physics and Astronomy, SUNY Stony Brook.  Ram has now bagged his second award for his Ph.D. dissertation.  The first was a Stony Brook President's Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students in 2006.  The second was announced just this week.  Ram will receive the 2007 American Physical Society / Division of Physics of Beams (see http://units.aps.org/units/dpb/ ) Doctoral Research Award at the April 2008 meeting of the APS / DPB.  The citation reads "For his dissertation about characterization and correction of RHIC's transverse optics and beam dynamics, and about design of an Ampere class SRF gun and cavity." 

Applications for the 2008 K30 Clinical Research Training Program are now being accepted

Applications for the 2008 K30 Clinical Research Training Program are now being accepted. This program provides didactic training and individual mentoring to MDs, PhDs and Doctors of Nursing who wish to pursue academic teaching and clinical investigation careers.

This is a one or two-year “from the bench to the bedside” program offering a curriculum in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Experimental Clinical Trials, Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues in clinical Trials, Data Management and manuscript Preparation and Grant Writing. At the culmination of the first year, participants earn an Advanced Certificate in Clinical Research, which also meets the criteria for consideration set forth by the NIH in preparation for submission of a K23 Mentored Clinical Research scholar Award or an R01 NIH Research Project Grant.

MDs, PhDs and Doctors of Nursing interested in learning more about the program should contact Margie Lundgren, Program Coordinator at 6-9004.

$30 MILLION GIFT FROM CHARLES SIMONYI AND BILL GATES TO HELP BUILD TELESCOPE

The Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences and Microsoft founder Bill Gates have contributed $30 million toward the construction of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).

The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory is collaborating with over 20 institutions to construct the powerful telescope on a mountain peak in Chile. The LSST will be used to probe fundamental questions in astronomy and physics, taking digital images of objects such as exploding supernovae and potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids.

LSST will take pictures of the sky using a gigantic camera within the telescope. Brookhaven has the lead role in developing the "film" for this camera, which is composed of electronic sensors, just as in a digital camera, but hundreds of times larger and sensitive to near- ultraviolet and infrared as well as visible light. The camera will capture the light from distant galaxies, which has taken billions of years to reach Earth. Brookhaven has been developing ways of learning about the mysterious ingredients that make up most of the universe - dark energy and dark matter - from the pictures of these galaxies, so far away in space and time.

For more information on the $30-million gift, go to:
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=08-X1

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Events

Provost Lecture Series

Joel T. Rosenthal               
All Hail the Alma Mater: Writing College Histories in the U.S.
Thursday, March 27, 4 pm, SAC Ballroom A

Joel Rosenthal is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at Stony Brook University. In his career, he chaired the History Department, was president of the University Senate, served as faculty chair of the Affirmative Action Committee, the UUP grievance officer for academics, as well as a member of AAUP's national committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. He has written and edited numerous books on medieval Europe, focusing mainly on England and on social structure, women, old age, and popular religion. He is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and wrote From the Ground Up: A History of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2004.

Robert J. Lang       
From Flapping Birds to Space Telescopes: The Modern Science of Origami
Wednesday, April 2, 4:00 pm, SAC Auditorium

Robert J. Lang is recognized as one of the foremost origami artists in the world as well as a pioneer in computational origami and the development of formal design algorithms for folding. With a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Caltech, he has, during the course of work at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored more than 80 papers and 45 patents in lasers and optoelectronics as well as 8 books and a CD-ROM on origami. He is a full-time artist and consultant on origami and its applications to engineering problems but moonlights as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics.

Robert Chazan
Convivencia: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval Spain
Thursday, April 10, 4 pm, SAC Auditorium

Robert Chazan is S.H. and Helen R. Scheuer Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU. Dr. Chazan's most recent books are: God, Humanity, and History: The Hebrew First-Crusade Narratives (Berkeley, 2000); Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge, 2004); and The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom (Cambridge, 2006). He also has published articles in journals in the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, and Israel. He has served as President of the Association for Jewish Studies, the American Academy for Jewish Research, and currently serves as Director of Educational Outreach for the Center for Online Judaic Studies. Photo credit: Judith Petrovich.

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For More Information

Gail S. Habicht is Vice President for Research. She can be reached at (631) 632-7932. An abundance of specific information for the research community is available on our website, where past issues of this bulletin can also be found.

Office of the Vice President for Research -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/

Research News and Monday Memo archive - http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/monmemo/mmarchive.html

All Past issue of Research News and Monday Memo are keyword searchable. The index can be accessed at - http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/sitemap.html.

If you have information you would like to contribute to Research News please email it to the editor, Ann-Marie Scheidt, at amscheidt@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

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