To submit a Letter of Intent (LOI), please click on the link above. The LOI must be completed by 5 pm ET on March 4, 2024.

Completed LOIs will include the title and short description of your project. This short description is limited to 4 sentences total and should accurately describe the biomedical relevance of your project.

Where applicable, please make sure the applicant’s email address is used for correspondence, not the applicant’s advisor.

Completed applications, including required signatures on the Face page, must be submitted to the link above by 5 pm ET on April 5, 2024.

Applications submitted without a Letter of Intent submission will not be accepted.

Applications with missing components will not be accepted.

If you have any questions relating to this NOFO please contact John.Clarkson@uscmed.sc.edu.

Applicants are required to participate in one of the following training opportunities:

Short Summer Workshops. The Bioinformatics Core of SC INBRE will provide two short courses in June of 2024. The first course will use R as its primary platform and is geared toward Data Analysts, while the second course will be delivered in Python and aimed at ML/AI Architects. Each course will consist of 2 weeks of training where the first week will focus on the basics of the platform (R or Python) while the second week will be aimed at applications to Data Analytics or ML/AI design. The courses will contain in-person (up to 40 participants due to space limitation) and remote components. The two courses will be delivered in sequence and will span the month of June.

Individualized Training Sessions. On special instances and based on availability, the Bioinformatics Core of SC INBRE will provide individualized training sessions. To provide this activity, we will dedicate the month of July to this form of training. To explore this mechanism of training, participants need to provide compelling reasons for the need for individualized training sessions, and reverse their training sessions in advance. These individual sessions will be delivered either in person at USC or remotely via Zoom meeting platform.

Enrollment in a Summer Data Science Course at an SC INBRE affiliated institution. Participants may enroll in a Data Science qualified course in one of the SC INBRE affiliated institutions. Participants are encouraged to communicate their plans with the core director (Homayoun Valafar, email) to ensure the appropriateness of the planned course. The requirement will be satisfied with a passing grade in the agreed course. For instance, a number of courses at USC such as “CSCE 106: Scientific Applications Programming in Python” will serve as an ideal example for this requirement. for enrollment by transient students. 

Enrollment in an online Data Science Course. Participants may enroll in one of many online Data Science courses offered by Corsera, Google, or Microsoft. Participants are encouraged to communicate their plans with the core director (Homayoun Valafar, email) to ensure the appropriateness of the planned course. The requirement will be satisfied with a passing grade or attainment of a certificate in the agreed course. 

SITA proposals are solicited from currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate students at institutions of higher education in the SC INBRE network who have not previously held a SITA award. 

**Only one proposal per funding period will be accepted from any student. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Although more than one application can be submitted per lab per funding period, the projects submitted by students with the same faculty mentor must be distinct projects.  Two students working as a team on the same project under the same mentor can apply together for a single SITA award although the award amount will remain the same.

The application package can be downloaded from the SC INBRE website (www.scinbre.org) in a fillable, pdf format. All forms must be completed according to the published guidelines found on the SC INBRE website. Each package includes the following:

• Face Page: This page must be filled out in its entirety

• Project Summary/Performance site/Key personnel: Fill out all components.

• Biographical Sketch for Student PI and Faculty Mentors (NIH-format) (Students, only fill out portions that apply)

• Biographical Sketch Example for Faculty Mentors 

• Budget Page: Enter total costs; cannot exceed $5,000

• Budget Justification:

  • • Allowable costs include personnel; tuition for an approved summer data analytics course; travel; equipment/software; and other costs as allowed on NIH research project grant budgets. Indirect costs are not allowed.

• Project Description (3 pages): Proposals must be prepared with 0.5” margins all around, using Arial (or similar sans serif font; font size no smaller than 11pt) and subdivided into sections indicated below (page limits are noted):

  • • Background

    • Research questions/hypothesis

    • Project goals/objectives

    • Project impact/significance

    • Project design/research plan– analysis of existing data only, no experimental data collection is allowed

    • Which approved data analytics workshop or course you will attend (see Utilization of Available Facilities and Resources tab for options)

    • Timeline for completing project

    • Anticipated results

    • Plan to disseminate results

    • Literature cited: one page (not included in page limit)

• Mentoring plan for student applicant (Mentor-collaboration form, up to 3 pages). Explain how the mentor will work with the applicant to develop the students’ research and intellectual skills and help them mature as scientists. 

• Human Subjects. Projects involving human subjects must already have IRB approval at the time of proposal application. This includes projects that are deemed to be exempt by their institutions. Human subject research must complete the appropriate required forms (links to forms in section below).  Applications with human subjects that do not have prior IRB approval will not be reviewed.  If research involves human subjects, discuss the use of human subjects as required in NIH grant applications. Provide PHS Inclusion Enrollment report, a certificate of training in HS research for the PI, and a letter of IRB approval for the project. No activities involving human subjects can be initiated without appropriate IRB approval of the protocol. 

Applications will be reviewed by the SC INBRE Administrative Core personnel to determine responsiveness to the NOFO, eligibility of the applicant, completeness of the application, and information regarding human subjects and vertebrate animals. Applications deemed incomplete, ineligible, or not responsive will be returned to the applicants. 

All proposals that meet the eligibility requirements and guidelines will be independently evaluated by SC INBRE’s Scientific Review Committee. A competitive proposal will describe a focused set of experiments that require bioinformatics methods of data analysis and will provide the applicant with training in bioinformatics tools and approaches. Reviewers will apply the following review criteria: 

• • Scientific merit of the proposed project; the project must be related to Biomedical Science. 

  • Clarity of explanation 

  • Overall strength of collaboration between mentor and applicant 

  • Qualifications of project personnel 

  • Quality of proposed training plans for students 

Final decisions on funding will be made by the SC INBRE External Advisory Committee and NIGMS. 

All applicants will receive a notice of award/declination and copies of the reviewers’ comments via email. Award recipients are required to provide the SC INBRE Administrative Core with project data for evaluation and reporting purposes, as follows: 

1. SITA award recipients are expected to present their results at the annual SC INBRE Scientific Symposium.

2. A comprehensive final report is due 30 days after the end date of the award.

3. All publications, resulting even in part from work supported by SC INBRE, must acknowledge SC INBRE support and a PMCID must be obtained for each publication in a timely fashion. PMCID information must be provided to the SC INBRE administrative staff as soon as available.

4. SIRP award recipients (both mentor and student) are expected to obtain an NIH Commons ID if funded. 

After the expiration date of each award, SC INBRE will continue to contact awardees for outcome-related data such as post-baccalaureate educational plans and job placement.