“Insights into the fusion event required for rhoptry secretion in Apicomplexa”
2023-09-15 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York) | VT
UVM Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
11:00-12:00 PM, Join the seminar, Passcode: [REDACTED] or in person Stafford Hall, Rm 410
“Insights into the fusion event required for rhoptry secretion in Apicomplexa”
Marta Cova, PhD, University of Montpelier, France

‘Impact of Preexisting Autoimmune Disease on Outcomes of Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes’
2023-09-15 14:00 - 15:00 | VT
UVM Clinical and Translational Sciences Seminar
2:00 PM – MedEd 206
‘Impact of Preexisting Autoimmune Disease on Outcomes of Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes’
Diego Adrianzen Herrera

“Prospective Screening for Genetic Health Risks: Status and Economic Review”
2023-09-18 08:00 - 09:00 | VT
UVM Department of Family Medicine Grand Rounds
8:00 – 9:00 am, Join the seminar, Meeting ID: 941 8945 2885
online or in-person, Davis Auditorium
“Prospective Screening for Genetic Health Risks: Status and Economic Review”
Robert Wildin, MD, Clinical Geneticist, Associate Professor, University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine

“Microtubule drugs and the challenge of targeting cancer cell mitosis.”
2023-09-18 12:00 - 13:00 | VT
Dartmouth College Department of Chemistry and Cell Biology
12:00 PM – Chilcott Auditorium, DHMC
Discovery Science Seminar Series: “Microtubule drugs and the challenge of targeting cancer cell mitosis.”
Timothy Mitchison, PhD, Hasib Sabbagh Professor of Systems Biology
Harvard Medical School

“Probing the Microenvironment of Coronavirus Double-Membrane Vesicles (DMVs)”
2023-09-19 11:30 - 12:30 | VT
UVM Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB) Seminar Series
11:30 AM-12:30 PM – Join online or in person in the Davis Auditorium, UVM
“Probing the Microenvironment of Coronavirus Double-Membrane Vesicles (DMVs)” Sylvester Languon, Ph.D. Student,
Advisor: Dr. Dev Majumdar
CMB Program/ Department of Surgery
&
Zach Miller, Ph.D. Student,
Abstract: Pending
Advisor: Dr. Matthew Wargo
CMB Program

NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS)
2023-09-20 14:00 - 15:00 | VT
NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS)
2:00-3:00 PM, Join the seminar
Prospective Cohort Studies for Environmental Health Research
Dale Sandler, Ph.D., NIEHS, NIH

“Immunoglobulin mRNA Regulation / AID localization”
2023-09-21 09:00 - 10:00 | VT
UVM Vermont Center for Immunology and Infectious Disease (VCIID) Research-in-Progress Meeting
9:00-10:00 AM – Join the meeting or in-person in HSRF 300, UVM campus “Immunoglobulin mRNA Regulation / AID localization”
Zach Miller and Tylar Kirch in Dr. Majumdar’s Lab

UVM Department of Chemistry Seminar
2023-09-21 10:00 - 11:00 | VT
UVM Department of Chemistry Seminar
10:05 – 11:00 AM, In-person Innovation E105
Leslie Sombers, North Carolina State UniversityHost: Yangguang Ou

“Caring for Hospitalized Patients with Opiod Use Disorder”
2023-09-22 08:00 - 09:00 | VT
UVM Department of Medicine Grand Rounds Seminar
8:00-9:00 AM – Join the seminar online (Passcode: [REDACTED] Meeting ID: 878 850 0732)
“Caring for Hospitalized Patients with Opiod Use Disorder”
Ellie Riser, MD Associate Professor, Department of Medicine Hospitalist

“MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD: Observations from 20 years of Clinical Trials”
2023-09-22 10:30 - 11:45 | VT
UVM Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds Seminar
10:30-11:45 AM – Join online Meeting ID: 913 3058 6982 , (Passcode: [REDACTED]
“MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD: Observations from 20 years of Clinical Trials”
Michael Mithoefer, MD, Senior Medical Director, MAPS Public Benefit Corporation

“Natural Antibodies in Allergic Airway Disease and Coordinated Chemokine Expression in Macrophage Subsets Across Tissues”
2023-09-22 12:00 - 13:00 | VT
UVM Vermont Lung Center Seminar
12:00 PM, HSRF 300
“Natural Antibodies in Allergic Airway Disease and Coordinated Chemokine Expression in Macrophage Subsets Across Tissues”
Claudia Jakubzick, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Dartmouth College Medical Center, Hanover, NH

UVM STEM Career Exploration Seminar
2023-09-22 14:00 - 15:00 | VT
UVM STEM Career Exploration Seminar
2:00-3:00 PM – Join online ( Passcode:[REDACTED] ID: 971 8788 0369, , MedEd 200
Speaker: Selina Yao, PhD
Mechanical Engineer at Rivian AutomotivesMeeting

Dartmouth Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences - Innovators in Cognitive Neuroscience Seminar Series
2023-09-25 02:30 - 15:30 | VT
Dartmouth Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences – Innovators in Cognitive Neuroscience Seminar Series
2:30-3:30 PM – Join the Seminar

Dartmouth Department of Microbiology and Immunology Seminar
2023-09-25 15:00 - 16:00 | VT
Dartmouth Department of Microbiology and Immunology Seminar
3:00-4:00 PM – Join the seminar (Passcode: [REDACTED]

Dartmouth College Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology Seminar
2023-09-26 11:00 - 12:00 | VT
11:00-12:00 PM, Join the seminar, Meeting ID: 928 7481 7919 Passcode: [REDACTED] in-person Chilcott Auditorium

UVM Obstetrics and Gynecology Grand Rounds
2023-09-26 11:15 - 12:15 | VT
UVM Obstetrics and Gynecology Grand Rounds
11:15-12:15 PM – Join the seminar

UVM Cellular and Molecular Biology (CMB) Seminar Series
2023-09-26 11:30 - 12:30 | VT
11:30 AM-12:30 PM – Join online or in person in the Davis Auditorium, UVM

UVM Pediatric Grand Rounds
2023-09-27 08:00 - 09:00 | VT
8:00-9:00 AM – Join online (Passcode: [REDACTED] or in person in the Davis Auditorium, UVM campus

“The Aldehyde Hypothesis”
2023-09-27 14:00 - 15:00 | VT
NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS)
2:00-3:00 PM, Join the seminar
“The Aldehyde Hypothesis”
Heran Darwin, PhD, NYU Langone Health, Grossman School of Medicine

"Barrett's Esophagus: New Developments (and some interesting insights) Regarding Pathogenesis, Pathology, and Risk Prediction"
2023-09-27 16:30 - 17:30 | VT
Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Grand Rounds 4:30-5:30 PM, Auditorium H, DHMC
“Barrett’s Esophagus: New Developments (and some interesting insights) Regarding Pathogenesis, Pathology, and Risk Prediction”
Robert Odze, MD< FRCPc, consultant faculty pathologist, and Professor of pathology, at Tufts University Medical School and medical center, and president of a global medical and pathology consulting company titled “Dr. Robert Odze Pathology LLC” (Odzepathology.com).

UVM Department of Chemistry Seminar
2023-09-28 10:00 - 11:00 | VT
10:05 – 11:00 AM, In-person Innovation E105
Burack Lecture – John Warner
Host: Rory Waterman

“Finding the Hidden Genomic Structural Variation Involved in Poplar Tree Hybridization”
2023-09-28 16:30 - 17:30 | VT
UVM Department of Plant Biology Marvin Memorial Seminar Series
4:30-5:30 PM Jeffords 110 or join online with Teams link
“Finding the Hidden Genomic Structural Variation Involved in Poplar Tree Hybridization”
Baxter Worthing and Rachel Wilson, UVM Plant
&
“TBA”
Biology graduate students

"Immunogenicity and protective mechanisms for a live attenuated tetravalent dengue vaccine”
2023-09-29 08:00 - 09:00 | VT
UVM Department of Medicine Grand Rounds Seminar
8:00-9:00 AM – Join the seminar online (Passcode: [REDACTED] Meeting ID: 878 850 0732)
Immunogenicity and protective mechanisms for a live attenuated tetravalent dengue vaccine”
Sean Diehl, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of MMG, Vaccine Testing Center, UVM Larner College of Medicine

“Brucella Type IV effectors: Strength in numbers.”
2023-09-29 11:00 - 12:00 | VT
UVM Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
11:00-12:00 PM, Join the seminar, Passcode: [REDACTED] or in person Stafford Hall, Rm 410
“Brucella Type IV effectors: Strength in numbers.”
Jean Celli, PhD, Professor, Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Department (MMG).

VBRN Grant Writing Workshop
2023-09-29 11:30 - 17:00 | DoubleTree Hilton Hotel, 870 Williston Rd, South Burlington, VT, 05403, United States
The VBRN Grant Writing Workshop will be held from 11:30-5:00 PM Friday, September 29, 2023 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in South Burlington, VT. Attendance at this workshop will be required for all faculty intending to apply for Exploratory, Pilot or Project Award funding for June 1, 2024-May 31, 2025. Attendance is recommended for a faculty who have received VBRN funding in the past and are interested in applying for individual NIH support in the future. The program consists of an informational session followed by small group breakouts to review the submitted pitch papers described below. Lunch is included prior to the start of the program.
Note the following key dates and information on the pitch paper or draft Specific Aims page.
Key dates for 2024 VBRN applications:

RSVP for Grant Writing Workshop: Friday, September 1, 2023

Include 2-3 key words for your intended research. Also provide contact information for any suggested reviewers. This workshop is a mandatory requirement to apply for VBRN funding

Pitch paper due: Friday, September 15, 2023

Email pitch paper to your coordinator with a working title for your proposal. This is a mandatory requirement to participate in the grant writing workshop.

Grant Writing Workshop: Friday, September 29, 2023
Letter of Intent due: Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Applicants must submit a Letter of Intent (LOI) to VBRN with a working title. VBRN will distribute the LOI template to those who attended the Grant Writing Workshop.

VBRN Application due: Friday, January 12, 2024

Tentative program schedule

11:30-12:00 PM
Registration

12:00-1:00 PM
Lunch and informal networking

1:00-1:15 PM
Welcome remarks

1:15-1:50 PM
Corporate and Private Funding Opportunities (Jay Caporale, Corporate and Foundation Relations, UVM Foundation)

1:50-2:25 PM

Funding for Experiential Learning (Dr. Delphine Quenet, UVM)
“Where to find help to develop a CURE and how to fund it?”

2:25-3:00 PM

NSF Award PI and Reviewer Insights (Dr. Matt Liptak, UVM)
“Differences between the NSF and NIH review criteria: perspective of an NSF PI and reviewer.”

3:00-3:15 PM
Break

3:15-5:00 PM
Pitch paper review panel and concluding remarks

Details on the Pitch Paper (draft Specific Aims page)
Faculty submit a NIH-style proposal to apply for VBRN funding. Because our network is comprised of primarily undergraduate institutions, VBRN encourages faculty to submit AREA R15 grants for extramural funding. As such, the NIH AREA R15 review criteria are used in the VBRN review process and for the pitch papers.
For the pitch paper, faculty are asked to include at a minimum Specific Aims of the proposed research (one-page total). Optionally and additionally, faculty may include draft Significance and Innovation components of an AREA R15 application (two-pages total, including the Specific Aims page).
VBRN’s goal is to recruit outside reviewers to participate in the small group breakouts. If you have any suggested reviewers you would like to recommend, please share their contact information when you email your RSVP to your BPI Coordinator. VBRN will then reach out to any suggested reviewers.
The Specific Aims page:
The Specific Aims page is particularly critical as your “calling card” to your readers. During a Study Section, only the three reviewers will read your full application, but most panelists will only see the Specific Aims page. Hence, your Specific Aims page is critical for selling your application to the whole panel. There is a formal structure to a Specific Aims page. It starts with an introductory paragraph that serves several key functions including introduction of the main scientific question, and statement of the central hypothesis that your work will test. Then, you write a short paragraph for each of the 2-4 principal objectives (Aims) of the study. Each Aim should include the premise behind the Aim, a description of how the Aim will be achieved, and what the likely impact of successful completion of the Aim will be to the field at large. Some PIs conclude their Specific Aims page with a brief impact statement describing how completion of the research will positively impact on the NIH Mission. A good Specific Aims page convinces the reader of the importance of your question, the logical strength of your central hypothesis, and the strength of your approach in testing this hypothesis.
For additional resources on writing a Specific Aims page contact VBRN (vbrn@uvm.edu).
Significance and Innovation components:
The Significance and Innovation sections function to convince the reader of the overall urgency of your scientific question, and whether you have devised a novel and forward-looking approach to test your main questions. Essentially, a well written significance section answers the why of your grant and convinces the reader that the problem needs further research. It should support your premise for the importance of the question and help frame why your hypothesis is reasonable. The Innovation section is an argument for the novelty of your approach. Typically, novelty is expressed in the form of a novel hypothesis, a new scientific approach or technique, and a novel conceptual framework to study and analysis.
For additional resources on writing Significance and Innovation sections contact VBRN (vbrn@uvm.edu).
An excellent guide for writing NIH grant proposals:
Robertson, John D. et al. The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook: National Institutes of Health Version. January 2019 edition. Buellton, CA: Grant Writers’ Seminars and Workshops, LLC, 2019. Print.
NIH Review Criteria include the following components. Consider these in the preparation of your pitch paper.

Overall Impact
Reviewers will provide an overall impact score to reflect their assessment of the likelihood for the project to make useful scientific contributions to the research field(s) involved, to provide research opportunities to undergraduate students by engaging them in primary research activities, and to strengthen the research environment of the institution, in consideration of the following review criteria and additional review criteria (as applicable for the project proposed).
Significance
Does the project address an important problem or a barrier to progress in the field? Is the prior research that serves as the key support for the proposed project rigorous? If the aims of the project are achieved, will the data be publishable and useful to the field? If funded, will the AREA grant have a substantial effect on the applicant institution in terms of strengthening the research environment and exposing undergraduate students to research?
Innovation
Does the application take advantage of, challenge or build on current research concepts and models or research techniques? Are innovative approaches to engaging undergraduate students in research proposed?
If you have any questions about the workshop, please contact your BPI Coordinator or vbrn@uvm.edu.

“Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) - from observations to action.”
2023-09-29 12:30 - 13:00 | VT
UVM Department of Neurological Sciences Grand Rounds Seminar
12:00-1:00 PM – In person only, Davis Auditorium
“Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) – from observations to action.”
Samden Dorjee Lhatoo MBBS, MD, FRCP(Lon), John P and Kathrine G McGovern Distinguished University Professor of Neurology, Executive Vice Chair, Department of Neurology, Director, Texas Comprehensive Epilepsy Program, Co-Director, Texas Institute of Epilepsy, Neurotechnologies and Neuroinformatics

"Immune System Optimization in a Variable World"
2023-09-29 14:00 - 15:00 | VT
Dartmouth College Biological Sciences Seminar
2:00-3:00 PM – Join the seminar Meeting ID: 952 7605 0167, (Passcode: [REDACTED] in-person LSC 100, Oopik Auditorium
“Immune System Optimization in a Variable World”
Ann Tate, Vanderbilt University

“A People’s Mental Health Movement: Sawubona and the Rise of Healing Circles”
2023-09-29 15:00 - 16:00 | VT
UVM Department of Psychological Science Department Colloquium
3:00-4:00 PM, In-person John Dewey Hall, Room 314
“A People’s Mental Health Movement: Sawubona and the Rise of Healing Circles”
Dr. Evan Auguste, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of MA, Boston Ma’at
Psychological Services

"New DNA repair mechanisms revealed from bacterial resistance to genotoxic natural products"
2023-10-03 08:00 - 17:00 | VT
UVM Department of Chemistry Seminar
10:05 – 11:00 AM, In-person Innovation E105
“New DNA repair mechanisms revealed from bacterial resistance to genotoxic natural products”
Brandt Eichman
Professor at Vanderbilt University

"Prioritizing Disease Critical Variants, Genes, and Cell Types Using Genetic and Genomic Data"
2023-10-03 15:00 - 16:00 | VT
National Cancer Institute Seminar
3:00-4:00 PM – Join online
“Prioritizing Disease Critical Variants, Genes, and Cell Types Using Genetic and Genomic Data”
Kushal Dey, PhD, Assistant Member and Josie Robertson Investigator, Sloan Kettering Institute
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
