General Observations
The APS Awards portfolio includes the six prizes listed
above. Based on the number of applicants, the Postdoctoral Fellowship in
Physiological Genomics is clearly the most attractive as it garners as many
applicants as the remaining five awards.
The number of applications for the Postdoctoral
Fellowship in Physiological Genomics continues to grow and increased by a
further 20% in 2006 from 30. This represents growth on top of 19% the
preceding year. Other awards attract consistent but low numbers of
applicants with the absence of visible growth.
The Committee tracks the gender distribution of
applicants and recipients [See Attachment: Gender Distribution of Award
Applicants and Recipients Since 1994]. Although there is some vacillation in
the numbers, there are roughly 2/3 to equal numbers of female to male
applicants. Given the general trend of increasing numbers of women entering
careers in biomedical sciences, we do not feel action is required, but
rather continue to track this information.
Review Criteria
Standardized review and scoring criteria are employed
for all of the awards. Such standardization makes identification of
outstanding applicants better grounded on objective and weighted factors,
and facilitates the job of the Committee.
Briefly, grant applications are initially reviewed
either by the whole committee or by 3 assigned reviewers. This is based on
the number of applications. For awards where there are fewer than the
Physiological Genomics Award, Scores were submitted to the National Office
where they were tabulated and distributed to the Committee in advance of the
conference call. At the beginning of the conference call applications that
were not competitive, based on their average score and the number of awards
available, were triaged. We then discussed in detail the remaining
applications. After the discussion all participating Committee members
scored or re-scored the application and submitted their scores. The final
scores were re-tabulated, and the award recipients were identified.
2005-2006 Award Recipients
Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in Physiological
Genomics
The Awards Committee received 30 applications for the
Postdoctoral Fellowship Award in Physiological Genomics. Applications were
generally of very high caliber. Normally, just two applications are
recommended for support. However, because of the quality of the proposals
and any objective measures to distinguish between the second two best ranked
applications, the Committee recommended award of 3 Fellowships this year.
This recommendation was supported by Council. The recipients were Qi Cai,
University of Arizona, Dept. of Physiology, Tuscon; Tatjana Coric, Yale
University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT; and Ho-Jin Koh, Joslin
Diabetes Center, Boston, MA. Fellowships are awarded at an increased level
of $36,000 annual stipend and $3,500 trainee allowance; $38,000 second-year
stipend with $3,500 trainee allowance.
The Research Career Enhancement (RCEA) and Teaching
Career Enhancement (TCEA) Awards
For the April and October 2005 deadlines five RCEA and
three TCEA applications were received. This is down substantially from the
previous year when a total of 33 applications were received. The Awards
Committee recommended funding three RCEA awards to: Linda R. Davrath, Tel
Aviv University, Israel; Markus Frederich, University of New England,
Biddeford, ME; and Zoltan Istvan Ungvari, New York Medical College,
Valhalla.
TCEA awards were offered to: Mauricio Javier Giuliodori,
National University of La Plata, Argentina; Roy D. Russ, Mercer University
School of Medicine, Macon, GA; and Nancy J. Pelaez, California State
University, Fullerton..
For the April, 2006 deadline, we received nine RCEA and
TCEA applications. These were reviewed during a conference call on June 13.
Young Investigator Awards
The APS has three Young Investigator Awards: the Arthur
C. Guyton Award for Excellence in Integrative Physiology, the Shih-Chun Wang
Young Investigator Award, and the Lazaro J. Mandel Young Investigator Award.
There were two applications for Arthur C. Guyton Award.
The Committee selected Nikolaos Tsoukias, Assistant Professor, Florida
International Univ., Miami, as the recipient.
Three applications were received for the Lazaro J.
Mandel Award. The Committee recommended Pablo A. Ortiz, Senior Staff
Investigator, Henry Ford Health Science Center, Dept. of Hypertension
Research, Detroit, MI as the recipient.
The Shih-Chun Wang Award was not available.