Qualifications and Requirements

• The applicant's thesis research must be in molecular/cellular biology.
  
• The applicant must be in good academic standing in a Ph.D. program in one of the eight participating departments (Biochemistry, Biological Structure, Biology, Immunology, Microbiology, Pathology, Pharmacology, and Physiology & Biophysics), or in the MCB, Neuroscience or BMSD programs. The applicant’s PI, on the other hand, must be an MCB interdisciplinary group faculty member. (See faculty list for eligible faculty.) Further, the MCB faculty member must hold either a primary appointment or adjunct appointment in one of the eight participating departments. MD/PhD and international students are not eligible. See note at the end of the page.


• The applicant must be willing to fulfill the NIH requirement of participating in a program in the principles of scientific integrity by attending the Biomedical Research Integrity Lecture Series sponsored by the School of Medicine.
  
• The applicant must have completed or be willing to complete 4 modules of the conjoint series.
  
• The applicant must be willing to attend every meeting of a monthly evening student presentation series as a requirement of participation.
  
• The applicant must be willing to attend the yearly retreat as a requirement of participation.
  
• The applicant must be a US Citizen, a non-citizen national of the United States, or possess the alien registration receipt card I-151 or I-551.
  
• The applicant's advisor must have sufficient support to underwrite necessary supplies, equipment and other expenses. The Cell and Molecular Biology Training Grant does not provide research funding. The trainee's advisor must attend the yearly retreat.
  
• This training grant allows a maximum of 36 months of aggregate support from NRSA Institutional Training Programs not to exceed the maximum NIH allowance of five years of aggregate NRSA support in any combination of institutional training awards and individual fellowship awards. An applicant must be eligible for at least 9 months of support (the minimum appointment period).

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Submission Instructions

The application must be typed. All application materials must be received in the MCB Office by the application deadline in order for the applicant to be considered.

Application materials include:

1. Four (4) collated copies of the following:
   • Cell and Molecular Biology Training Grant application
   • Research proposal (maximum 4 doubled-spaced pages (see previous instructions for format)
   • Current Curriculum Vitae listing scholarships, awards, publications, research experience (previous full-time employment as well as previous lab rotations).
   • College and university transcripts, including UW (copies from department offices are acceptable).
2. Letters of recommendation from the advisor and the second reference should be faxed (685-8174) or mailed directly to the MCB Office (Room 466, T-Wing, Mailbox 357275) by the referee.
3. Paper clip each copy of the complete application - Do Not Staple. Send application materials to the MCB Office, Box 357275 or deliver to Room 466, T-wing. If you have any questions, please call 543-0253.
   
   For more details go to the CMB TG Application.

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Tips for a great proposal and presentation

The following tips have been written specifically for the Cell and Molecular Biology Training Grant, but they apply to any training grant application or postdoctoral fellowship application, and in large part to a research grant application.

1. The proposal should be "hypothesis-driven". The aims of your proposal should clearly follow from your hypotheses. Begin writing with the hypotheses and let the experiments follow from that, rather than the other way round. If you propose making a knock-out mouse, for example, why is that important? What central idea will it test? How will the results you obtain allow you to test your hypothesis? One of the biggest mistakes people make is providing a list of experiments but not tying it to a specific hypothesis.
2. Consider alternatives. If you propose making a transgenic mouse as the central aim of your proposal and the mouse shows no phenotype is your research project down the tubes? While no one can anticipate the outcome of every experiment, if there is a reasonable chance of your major aim not working (a mouse with no phenotype, a 2- hybrid that produces no interacting proteins, etc.), be sure that you have thought of an alternate direction, even if you only briefly explain it.
3. Be sure your aims are realistic. You could propose making 20 knock-out mice to test an interesting idea, but unless your advisor is planning to provide you with an army of technicians, reviewers will know that you do not understand the practical limitations. Remember also that this is a 3-year training grant. Projects that would take 3 people 4 years to complete are unrealistic, whereas a project that will be finished within a year shows that you have not considered the length of the grant.
4. Write for a general audience. Your reviewers may know your field intimately, but more likely than not, they will know the area only superficially. It is your job to explain to the reviewer why the field is important and why the hypotheses you propose will provide important insight. It is a very good idea to give your proposal (and practice your presentation) to someone outside your field and ask them if there are areas that they find confusing.
5. Write and present clearly. When reviewers have to work through a lot of proposals, and often are rushed for time, they will be much less sympathetic to a poorly written or poorly organized proposal, no matter how brilliant the ideas.
6. Minimize jargon. While it might seem that you will impress a reviewer with your wonderful knowledge of a field by using technical terms, it will only alienate a reviewer. If you have to use words specific to your field, then be sure that they are clearly explained. If you use acronyms, be sure they are explained and do not use more than are necessary.
7. Make clear your contribution to any results and ideas. It is typical in scientific seminars that "we" is used since the results are usually the product of more than one person (a student and her/his advisor, for example). But in a proposal, the reviewers want to know what you did and how much you contributed to the results and ideas that you present. Distinguish between what was done in the lab before you started and what have you done since or how what you propose to do is different than what has been done before (or is being done by others).

NOTE:

1. UW Faculty can be either regular departmental faculty or clinicians. If the faculty member does not have a primary appointment in one of the 8 departments, they must have an adjunct appointment in one of the participating departments and must be MCB Faculty.
2. Hutch Faculty must be in either Basic Science or Human Biology and MCB Faculty. No clinical faculty may apply even if they are MCB Faculty or have an appointment in one of the 8 participating departments.

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