To submit a Letter of Intent (LOI), please click on the link above. The LOI must be completed by 5 pm ET on December 13, 2024.

Completed LOIs will include the title and short description of your project. This short description is limited to four (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 January 15, 2025.

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. TBA. Contact Homayoun Valafar, email, for details.

Individualized Training Sessions. On special instances and based on availability, the Bioinformatics Core of SC INBRE will provide individualized training sessions. 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. 

Applications will be reviewed by the SC INBRE Administrative Core personnel to determine responsiveness to the NOFO, eligibility of the applicant, and completeness of the application. 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. Acknowledgement Statement

4. SITA 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.