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Biotech And Life Sciences Grant Program: Only A Few Crumbs To Go Around?

crumbs Biotech Grant Program: Are a Few Crumbs Better Than No Crumbs At All?After assuming control of the House in the mid-term elections, Republicans vowed to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act, the health reform law signed by the “Big O” last March. Thank heavens, therefore, that the Boehners were too busy congratulating themselves to even notice those federal helicopters dumping $1 billion in cash on some needy biotech companies just as the election results were being tallied.

Yep, it happened. Federal disbursements in the form of grants and tax credits were made last week, as required by a provision in the reform law known as the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program. According to the terms of this program, biotech and life sciences companies with less than 250 employees could apply for federal funds to cover research costs they had incurred in the last two years, so long as the research focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic diseases. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*

Inside The NIH Grant Review Process

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the world’s biggest sponsor of research in the life sciences. Today’s biologists, clinical researchers, and many others rely on the NIH for their funding.

To help people better understand how the peer review process happens within the NIH, the agency’s Center for Scientific Review created the following video that includes samples of research being openly discussed by a number of scientists:

Click here to view another video of tips for NIH grant applicants.

*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*

Do Pharmaceutical Companies Have “Social Media Anxiety Disorder?”

There’s been an ongoing discussion about how the Life Sciences industries can face and integrate recently-evolving media which the Web has been and continues to sprout. Remarkable as they are, the discussions are endless and most loop back into themselves without generating sufficient voltage to power an army of macrophages. Additionally, pharmaceutical companies (pharma) –- beset by a myriad of constraints –- are anxious about flipping on social connection switches which the Web furiously creates every day. We could say that pharma has a sort of social media anxiety disorder. What to do?

The answer isn’t in social media. It’s not in what the FDA decides to do. It’s not in echo chambers found within Twitter or blogs or conferences. It lies in simple, basic economic truths. It lies in radical acceptance and in brave recreation. It lies beneath the proverbial nose of obviousness. It lies far beyond any discussion about the meanings and promises and purposes of new media on the Web. Pharma’s social media anxiety disorder is merely a peripheral symptom of deeper pathologies. Let’s assess the patient. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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