Research Project
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B. ADMINISTRATIVE TASKS In addition to routine administrative tasks such as interaction with institutional administrators and the grant accounting personnel, dissemination of printed material, copying, typing, handling correspondence, etc, Core A will be responsible for organizing the following scientific venues and mechanisms, 1. Steering Committee. Drs, Hanein, Danuser, Horwitz, Schwartz, Ginsberg and Volkmann will form the Steering Committee for this Program Project, The steering committee will held 10-15 minutes monthly conference calls, which will be the forum for discussion of all major issues regarding the PPG as well as discussion of the month-to-month scientific progress and future planning. The discussions will include new strategies or directions for the Program Project, emerging technologies, or the impact of major breakthroughs in the field. The Pl will plan and chair these meetings. In fact, these phone meetings as well as exchange of documents via DropboxTM have already been established as the communication instruments for the preparation of this application 2. Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The Program Project will be supported by the SAB, which will consist of four prominent scientists and leaders in the fields of cell migration, force sensing, high resolution light and/or EM imaging. All SAB members accepted our invitation (see letters). Dr. Kenneth Downing (LBNL at UC Berkeley). His research focuses on the structure and function of tubulin, actin-micretubules interactions, and developing frozen-hydrated specimen preparation methodology for imaging cytoskeleton of small bacteria. Dr. Dennis E. Discher (UPenn). His lab is broadly interested in cell mechanics and polymer engineering, studying among others the underlying principles of controlling stem cell differentiation with novel materials and polymers. Dr. Michael Sheetz (Columbia University and National University of Singapore). An expert in force depending signaling and in quantitative physical and biochemical models determining dynamic cellular function. Dr. Clare M Waterman (NHLBI). Her current research integrates high resolution light microscopy with molecular cell biology to study directed cell migration (qFSM and IPALM). The main function of the SAB is to provide critical feedback en the goals and progress of the research planned and accomplished in the Program Project. The SAB members will attend the Annual Retreat, which will allow them to evaluate the overall progress of the Program Project. Comments will be provided to the PI via teleconference and email correspondence. Members of the SAB will also be consulted by phone from time to time to assist in major decisions concerning the course of the work, and new opportunities, 3. Training and interactions. A critically important level of interaction will be inter-lab visits by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. These visits have already been initiated and several students/postdoctoral fellows (Danuser's, Horwitz's labs) have visited the Hanein lab to learn the basics of the LM/EM sample preparations. Funds have been requested to facilitate these visits, and past experience demonstrates that these exchanges are extremely productive. The core will also encourage trainees to participate actively in the scientific presentations and discussions. Scientific presentations of data in joint meetings will be primarily done by graduate students and postdocs, with only brief overviews by faculty. The annual retreat (see below) will be another excellent opportunity to deepen the interactions. 4. PPG Administrator. The Program benefits from the expertise of an outstanding administrative assistant, Ms. Debbie Signer. Ms. Signer has excellent organizational skills and has the ability to prioritize workload, meet deadlines, and work with frequent interruptions, and is proficient with the MSOffice Suite and EndNote, on both Macintosh and PC computers. The administrative assistant is provided by SBIMR and will act as PPG administrator and assist Dr. Hanein in all duties outlined above. In her role as Program Project Administrator, Debbie will coordinate the scheduling of the annual retreat and face-to-face meetings of the project leaders, scheduling of video conference call meetings, quarterly and annual reviews to NIGMS, documentation of reviews, dissemination of meeting schedules, budgets, management and the accounting of cere resources. The administrator will facilitate efficient interfacing of the investigators at the various institutions and their grants managements, ether administrative personnel. 5. Monthly video conference call meetings. The seven laboratories (Hanein, Volkmann, Danuser, Horwitz, Ginsberg, Schwartz and Groisman) will have a joint monthly video conference call meetings (the Steering Committee conference calls will precede these meetings), which will include students and post-doctoral fellows presenting their work pertaining to the PPG for discussion. Each meeting will have a short presentation of updates by two of the projects, followed by general discussion, 15 minutes at the end are reserved for trouble-shooting questions, ensuring that reagents, software and technologies shared between the labs are appropriately used. These meetings will be attended by all members of the all laboratories (approximately 25 people). 6. Annual Retreat. An annual review of the Projects and Ceres will be performed at least one month in advance of the non-competing progress report deadline. This review will be carried out in the form of an Annual Retreat attended by all Pis, lab members of the on-site labs, one or two key lab members of the off-site labs, and the SAB members. These retreats will be held at SBIMR in La Jolla, which will limit travel to 50% of the team and thus minimize costs. The Annual Retreat will consist of a full day of presentations by the project leaders, graduate students and pest-doctoral fellows from each laboratory. This retreat will not only assist the investigators in obtaining objective views of their scientific progress and advice to overcome potential obstacles, but will also provide an additional avenue for integrating input of pre- and pest-doctoral fellows. 7. Annual progress report. The Annual Retreat will be the basis for a written annual progress report, in addition to Dr. Hanein's summary and each investigator[unreadable]s report. This report will be sent to NIGMS as part of the non-competing renewal process. 8. Scientific publications and Program Project homepage. The principal avenue for public dissemination of the scientific results obtained in the context of this Program Project will be publications in peer-reviewed international journals. The overall objective of the Program Project is to provide important scientific advances and breakthroughs. The Program Project webpage will outline the scientific goals of Program Project, lists and summaries of publications, and available reagents. For software dissemination, links will be maintained to the downlead websites of the Danuser and Volkmann labs. The web page will also link to all the investigator[unreadable]s websites and their publications. The website will be created with help of the resources available at the SBMRI for the creation and maintenance of scientific websites. Towards this goal. Dr. Hanein will be directly assisted by the High Performance Computing (HPC) team (Dr. C. Weber and Mr. L. Kasko) she currently supervises. The format and security of the website will also be maintained with the help and expertise at HPC/SBMRI.
