One of my projects was caught in the transition- as long as we didn't have
crystals diffracting to high resolution, the project was highly significant
but was denied (continuation of) funding for lack of confidence we
would get the structure. After we got good crystals and phased them
they said sure, you can solve the structure, but what is the broader context?
What questions are you trying to answer? What is your hypothesis?
Once you get good crystals, you can probably solve the structure
in a year by yourself. Is it justified to ask for 5 years and a Post-Doc
to pay back for effort already successfully invested? or to bootstrap
the next project up to the fundable stage?
Maybe propose four years of cell biology, mutagenesis, and drug-binding
experiments to test the hypotheses you are going to be able to make once
you have the structure for clues?
ed
On 04/14/2015 03:06 PM, Anastassis Perrakis wrote:
Dear Bernhard,
I think you need to clarify the first question. “Denied funding’ means to me
that a committee officially denied the proposal for these reasons, which is
rare, as typically they are very careful, or at least that is my experience.
However, its rather common that one of the referees uses any of these as a
negative point during a review.
Most importantly though, I think that these days almost any grant that is
purely based on determining structures will be denied by definition. Thus I
doubt if the question as it is posed now warrants investigation … I think the
time for ‘crystallographic studies’ has passed and almost all grants that
include structural work are in the context of a wider scientific framework...
best
Tassos
Were you denied funding for a structure study because you did not have yet
(a) large scale protein expression
(b) first crystals
(c) diffraction crystals
(d) data
(e) maps
Did you have to 'reverse engineer' an application, i.e. you had the
structure already (almost) and
then write the grant?
Any other peculiarities/comments you received, and what you feel would need
improvement/should be addressed.
Again, any comments will be confidential and will contribute to raise
awareness for the special
requirements of, and funding for, the significant up-front work necessary
for crystallographic studies.
Get it off your soul and make the world a better place.
Thanks and best regards, BR
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Bernhard Rupp
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