News

On May 8, 2013, NIH released its new Fiscal Policy for grant awards for its FY 2013. To information on the policy including changes from previous years, click here.

According to NIH grants policy, all grantee publications about research that are funded by NIH must include a specific acknowledgment of NIH grant support. A new web page on NIH funding acknowledgement provides grantees with useful guidance to meet the award requirements. The new web page can be found by clicking here.

Two University of Kentucky faculty members were honored on April 25 with awards recognizing their outstanding contributions to teaching and scholarship at UK. Sidney W. Whiteheart, professor of molecular and cellular biochemistry in the UK College of Medicine, was awarded the 2013 Albert D. and Elizabeth H.

The Provost Budget Office Grant Group collaborates with college, program, and central Units to provide tools which will enable departments to achieve operational and strategic goals through guidance on best practices with regards to pre- and post-award grants management. For more information, check out their website.

We’ve become aware that while the transition to RPPR is effective for all NIH continuing awards to be made July 1 or later (for all reports due beginning in May), both the eSNAP and RPPR options may be available in eRA Commons. PLEASE advise your faculty to select the RPPR option. They should not select eSNAP.

Alzheimer's disease is on the rise, but the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging is a major player in the fight against this debilitating condition. Since the founding of the SBCoA in 1979, and the federal funding of the SBCoA Alzheimer's Disease Center (ADC) in 1985, the center has made many contributions to the body of knowledge about Alzheimer's and related brain aging conditions. The facts about Alzheimer's disease are staggering. An estimated 5.2 million Americans and approximately 34 million people worldwide have Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

From Susan Stark, College Grants Officer (CGO) for the College of Medicine: As reminder, it is the College’s practice that proposals (including annual progress reports) will NOT be reviewed until the eIAF for the submission has been rec’d by the CGO for review. Also, the CGO will communicate directly with the person who submitted the eIAF if there are questions about the eIAF, associated attachments, or financial disclosure/conflict of interest.

NEWS FOR RESEARCHERS: MAJOR CHANGES TO PATENT LAW EFFECTIVE MARCH 16, 2013 The America Invents Act (“AIA”) became fully effective March 16th, bringing major changes to American patent law. Many of these changes will substantially impact the way universities pursue patents. A summary of the major changes most likely to affect you include the following: 1. CHANGE TO FIRST TO FILE RULE The U.S. will change from the prior first to invent rule to a first to file rule. While the first to file rule has been the norm for most foreign countries, since inception of the patent office the U.S.

Warm weather is back. Therefore it is time to review appropriate clothing for working in the laboratory. According to the UK Environmental Health and Safety guidelines, lab personnel should not shorts or tank tops, torn clothing or extremely loose or dangling clothing. Long hair should be restrained. Shoes should be closed toed therefore, sandals and flipflops are not allowed. If you have questions about appropriate clothing to wear while working in the lab, refer to the Environmental Health and Safety website.

The National Science Board has recently released a Request for Information: Reducing Investigator's Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research. Read more at the National Science Board website.

Federal regulations issued by the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) require employees performing work on sponsored agreements to certify university work efforts as a distribution of 100% of total compensated time worked. UK has chosen the After-the-Fact effort reporting method described in Section J.8 of OMB Circular A-21 to meet the requirement for certifying effort on sponsored project agreements. 

From the NIH Public Access Website: The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. To help advance science and improve human health, the Policy requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded $20 million to the University of Kentucky to move research discoveries to health care solutions more quickly. The five-year funding, awarded through the NIH's institutional Clinical and Translational Science Awards program, is the largest research funding award ever received by UK and will be used to support research at UK's Center for Clinical and Translational Science, making it part of a select national biomedical research consortium. The UK center is led by Dr.

The University of Kentucky has developed several research strengths, particularly in therapeutic areas that have high prevalence in Kentucky.  These strengths include research into cancer, substance abuse, neurological diseases and cardiovascular sciences. University of Kentucky is part of an elite group of medical centers across the country who have earned the "trifecta" of national federal funding.

Researchers at UK have discovered a new cellular mechanism that may better explain what causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that involves the death of motor neurons, leading to the muscle weakness and atrophy.