UPDATE ON THE NCS RESEARCH TRAINING
FELLOWSHIP GRANT J. Claude Hemphill III, MD, MAS, FNCS, Past-President, Neurocritical Care Society
Four years ago, the Neurocritical Care
Society made a commitment to expanding
neurocritical care research by focusing on
junior members emerging into research
careers. By designing a grant program that
funds a focused mentored experience, the
hope was to give promising neurocritical
care researchers a jumpstart on the way to
more substantial extramural funding from
organizations like NIH, the American Heart
Association, and other foundations. We are
now in full swing for the review process for
the third NCS Research Training Fellowship
Grant, with the recipient to be announced at the NCS Annual
Meeting this October. So, this seemed like a good opportunity to
catch up with the recipients of the first two grants.
David Y. Hwang, MD
The inaugural recipient, David
Hwang from Yale, was funded for his
project entitled Understanding
Priorities of Surrogates for Intracerebral
Hemorrhage Patients with Uncertain
Prognosis. I asked David about his
experience being an NCS Research
Grant recipient.
“Having just completed my year
funded by the NCS fellowship, I can
say that it was absolutely critical
to moving my research on goalsof
care decision making among
surrogates for ICH patients forward,” he said. “Research on ICUshared
decision making can sometimes fall outside the purview of
traditional funding agencies. Aside from the generous resources
that the NCS fellowship has provided, the validation from the
society that such investigations are of value has really been
tremendously meaningful for me. I’ve been very grateful for it.”
Edilberto Amorim, MD
Last year’s recipient, Edilberto
Amorim from Massachusetts
General Hospital, was funded for his
project Unraveling the Dynamic
Neural Networks of Coma Recovery in
Hypoxic-ischemic Brain Injury.
“The NCS research fellowship has
been instrumental in my transition
from fellow to staff by providing me
the flexibility needed to dedicate
more time to the lab and build
meaningful relationships with
mentors and new collaborators,”
he commented. “During the NCS fellowship, we have initiated
our own prospective study on coma recovery neuromonitoring
in cardiac arrest, and this preliminary data allowed us to recently
secure additional funding from the American Heart Association and
Philips. We hope that applying novel machine learning methods
to quantitative EEG, cognitive evoked potentials, and neuroimaging
data will help us shine light on mechanisms of consciousness
recovery after severe brain injury.”
Currently, the NCS Training Grant funds one person for one
year. The amount of the award is $70,000 (with up to 10 percent
in additional indirect costs to the recipient’s institution). Key
requirements are:
• An identified mentor who is an established investigator with
independent funding
• Protected research time by the applicant’s department of at least
75 percent
• A career training/development program with specific goals
• An identified research project
• Clear evidence of institutional
support to cover salary gap and
research costs.
Eligible candidates can come from any
background relevant to neurocritical
care and must be within five years
of completing a terminal degree or
training. Expect an announcement
soon for the fourth NCS Research
Training Fellowship Grant. Our
first two recipients are outstanding
representatives for NCS and what the
research grant program was intended
to achieve. The science is high quality
and relevant. The review process is
robust. Jonathan Rosand deserves
special thanks for bringing his NIH
K grant review expertise to NCS and
leading the study section that reviews
the NCS fellowship grant proposals. This is a great start, but now
I have a challenge for all of us to take the next step: expanding
the NCS fellowship grant process and research program. When
we began this program, we knew we needed to do it, but did not
know how to fund it. Remember those t-shirts you bought at the
annual meeting parties? Or the NCS leadership dunk tank? Fun
Run and golf tournament at the NCS Annual Meeting? Or just
checking the box to donate to the NCS Research Fund when you
renewed your annual dues? This is your fellowship and it exists
because of the generosity of NCS members in making this happen.
I would like to fund more than one NCS Research Fellowship
Training Grant each year. I would like to expand our funded
research endeavors to other projects. This is our opportunity and
challenge. We have set an ambitious goal of raising $35,000 for
the research fund at this year’s NCS Annual Meeting in Hawaii. I
will be in the Fun Run, at the golf tournament, and, of course, in
the meeting sessions to hear and participate in NCS science. Our
goal is achievable, and I thank you for all you continue to do to
help NCS fulfill its Research Mission.
21
J. Claude
Hemphill III, MD,
MAS, FNCS
NCS RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP