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Schmidt M, Boulanger-Espeut C, Liou G, Ma N, Torres S, Cersosimo S, Bogler O, Zahir N. Evaluation of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) Program. J Cancer Educ 2024:10.1007/s13187-024-02420-1. [PMID: 38499846 DOI: 10.1007/s13187-024-02420-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/29/2024] [Indexed: 03/20/2024]
Abstract
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) K99/R00 award is intended to help postdoctoral scholars transition in a timely manner to research independence and to foster their development of an impactful cancer research program that is competitive for subsequent independent funding. Here we analyzed factors that impact peer review outcomes and evaluated whether NCI K99/R00 awardees have achieved the goals of the K99/R00 funding mechanism. Our analysis of the K99/R00 review criterion scores demonstrates that while all review criterion scores are positively correlated with the overall impact score, the Research Plan criterion is the strongest predictor of the overall impact score and funding outcomes. In addition, our analysis shows the NCI K99/R00 award facilitated the successful transition of postdoctoral scholars to research independence and enhanced the likelihood of K99/R00 awardees to secure subsequent R01-equivalent NIH grant support although not in an accelerated fashion as originally intended. An NCI K99/R00 award was not determined to be a prerequisite to obtain a faculty position, but for some awardees, it was an asset in that transition. Our results suggest that the NCI K99/R00 award is an important component for training and retention of the next generation of independent cancer researchers and to increasing the percentage of women and promoting the diversity of the cancer research workforce.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael Schmidt
- National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
| | | | - Grace Liou
- National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
| | - Nan Ma
- Digital Science, Inc, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Sasha Torres
- National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
| | - Susan Cersosimo
- National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
| | - Oliver Bogler
- National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA
| | - Nastaran Zahir
- National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA.
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