Hamm to advise NIH on peer review of grant applications
Heidi Hamm, Ph.D., chair of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been appointed to a new council to advise the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on peer review of grant applications.
Heidi Hamm, Ph.D.
Peer review is a key method the NIH uses to ensure that the grants it awards to scientists throughout the country will advance the most promising research.
The new council replaces the NIH Peer Review Advisory Committee, to which Hamm was appointed in 2007. It will advise the Center for Scientific Review (CSR), which organizes peer review of most grant applications submitted to the NIH.
“I am honored to be a part of the CSR Advisory Council, an important input from extramural scientists to the CSR on peer review process,” said Hamm, the Earl W. Sutherland Jr. Professor of Pharmacology and professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences and Orthopaedic Surgery & Rehabilitation.
“This council ensures that scientists have a voice in the process of enhancing peer review,” she said, “(and) that research proposals get the most expert scientific review.”
The 11-member council includes Bruce Alberts, Ph.D., editor-in-chief of the journal Science; Garret FitzGerald, M.D., chair of Pharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania and former director of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt; and David Korn, M.D., vice provost for Research at Harvard University.
The council will meet twice a year. The first meeting was held May 2 on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. For more information, go to http://cms.csr.nih.gov/AboutCSR/csrac.