September 12, 2018
Funding Connection

  • The National Science Foundation Cultural Anthropology Program supports fundamental, systematic anthropological research and training to increase understanding of the causes, consequences, and complexities of human social and cultural variability.
  • The Russell Sage Foundation program on Behavioral Economics supports innovative research that uses behavioral insights from psychology, economics, sociology, political science and other social sciences to examine and improve U.S. social and living conditions.
  • Read more of this week's featured opportunities
URCO updates
Now that the fall semester is in full swing, the University Research Compliance Office has updates to share.

  • The K-State Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) will be conducting fall semiannual inspections October 1–12.
  • We have many great tools on our website to assist with preparation for these inspections.
  • If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our IACUC Compliance Coordinator, Megan Trapp, at 785-532-3233 or moore5@ksu.edu. She is more than happy to conduct a pre-inspection and answer your questions.
  • We greatly appreciate everyone’s dedication to providing and maintain a high-quality program of animal care and use. 

  • We are pleased to welcome the new Institutional Biosafety Committee Chair, T. Annelise Nguyen.
  • Harold Trick, who has served as chair since 2006, will continue to serve as a member on the committee. Thank you, Dr. Trick, for your years of service!
  • Dr. Nguyen is an associate professor in the department of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology. She received a B.S. in molecular and cellular biology in 1996 and a doctorate in toxicology in 2001 from Texas A&M University. She received a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Eye Institute under the mentorship of Dolores Takemoto at Kansas State University. Dr. Nguyen joined the toxicology group in the K-State College of Veterinary Medicine in 2004. Her research interests are in the field of cancer biology, focusing on the role of gap junctional intercellular communication. Dr. Nguyen has authored or co-authored more than 35 peer-reviewed publications and 80 research abstracts.  

Visit the University Research Compliance Office website for more information, or contact us at 785-532-3224 or comply@k-state.edu.

— Cheryl Doerr, associate vice president for research compliance
Events and announcements
  • Friday, September 14 is the last day of general registration for the 2018 NIH Regional Seminar on Program Funding & Grants Administration in San Francisco. Find more information and register.

  • The Global Food Systems Initiative is sponsoring a presentation by Tom Gill and David Ader from the Smith Center for International Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Tennessee. Hear "Smallholder farming systems for the future: What is the role of a land-grant university?" September 18, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Leadership Studies Town Hall. Read more.



  • The National Science Foundation Fall 2018 Grants Conference is November 8-9 in New Orleans. The events are designed to provide new faculty, researchers, and administrators with key insights into a range of issues, including proposal preparation and merit review basics, award management topics, and more. Find more information and register.
DARPA opportunities
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency pursues transformational change rather than incremental advances. The agency offers funding opportunities for multidisciplinary approaches to advance knowledge through basic research and create innovative technologies to address current and predicted practical problems through applied research.

Attend a training session September 13, 3:30 to 4:30 in Union 226 to learn about:

  • The DARPA Young Faculty Award program;
  • Office-wide Broad Agency Announcements, or BAAs;
  • Current solicitation examples from each of the six offices (Biological Technologies, Defense Sciences, Information Innovation, Microsystems Technology, Strategic Technology, and Tactical Technology); and
  • Anticipated topical areas of interest.
National Postdoc Appreciation Week
September 17-21 is National Postdoc Appreciation Week. Postdoctoral researchers play an integral role in K-State research, scholarly, and creative activity and discovery.

Please register to join us to celebrate K-State postdocs, learn new skills, and find community.

  • Monday: Kickoff and Networking Lunch
  • Wednesday: Professional Development — Job talks and research statements
  • Friday: Ice Cream Social
Agency news and trending topics
The U.S. patent office has delivered a potentially lucrative victory to bioengineer  Feng Zhang  of the Broad Institute in Massachusetts, regarding patents for an extraordinarily useful gene-editing tool.

African swine fever (ASF), a deadly virus in pigs and wild boar, continues to spread in China and will almost certainly wreak havoc in other countries in Asia soon. That's the somber conclusion from a meeting of animal health experts organized by the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Bangkok late last week.

Google has unveiled a search engine to help researchers locate online data that are freely available for use. The company launched the service on 5 September, saying that it is aimed at “scientists, data journalists, data geeks, or anyone else.” 

Jason Schmitt was working at Atlantic Records when the online site Napster disrupted the music industry by making copyrighted songs freely available. Now, the communications and media researcher at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, is pushing for a similar disruption of academic publishing with  Paywall, a documentary  about the open-access movement .... The documentary explores the impact of Sci-Hub, a website that provides pirated versions of paywalled papers for free online, and interviews academics and publishing figures. Schmitt says many large publishers refused to go on camera—although representatives from Science and Nature did—and he is not impressed that several have begun publishing some open-access journals. “Elsevier is as much to open access as McDonald's fast food is to healthy,” he says.

Founder of narrative medicine to speak on how the humanities can improve medical practice. Charon will deliver ... “To See the Suffering: The Humanities Have What Medicine Needs,” on Monday, October 15, at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., at 7:30 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public and will stream online at  neh.gov .

A year and a half ago, as I was preparing to launch my own laboratory studying cognition at Columbia University in New York City, I kept returning to a particular concern: I would soon be responsible for the scientific advancement of trainees. How could I help them be the best scientists they could be, while also protecting their well-being?
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