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Two AAAAI Members Awarded R01 Grants on Their First Attempt
Two AAAAI Members Awarded R01 Grants on Their First Attempt
Learn about their research and what it took to reach this incredible milestone
Sergio E. Chiarella, MD, FAAAAI
For any researcher, receiving grant funding, particularly an R01 grant, is a milestone that can take many attempts to secure. This year, two AAAAI members achieved this milestone on their first attempt.
“Being awarded an R01 on my first attempt was incredibly rewarding and a significant achievement in my career,” Sergio E. Chiarella, MD, FAAAAI, said. “The R01 is one of the most prestigious grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Receiving this grant shows that your research is seen as valuable and promising by leading experts in the field.”
Dr. Chiarella is a 2022 awardee of the AAAAI Foundation & Donald YM Leung, MD, PhD, FAAAAI, Faculty Development Award. He is currently finishing his project, “Investigation of Tmem178 as a Novel Endogenous Inhibitory Pathway in Asthma.”
Cosby Stone, Jr, MD, MPH, FAAAAI, who also has just received an R01, is a 2021 Faculty Development awardee who just completed his project, “Defining the Key Epidemiologic and Immunogenetic Risk Features of True IgE Mediated Cephalosporin Allergy.”
Cosby Stone, Jr, MD, MPH, FAAAAI
“It was a major relief to get R01 funding from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to continue our work implementing penicillin allergy risk assessments and delabeling,” Dr. Stone said. “Knowing that I can continue this particular work that I love doing was a highlight of my year. Knowing that I wouldn't have to revise or rewrite my grant was an enormous gift of extra time to focus on doing the work that I love.”
Any grant application, but especially an R01, requires a huge amount of effort, often over the course of multiple years just to develop the preliminary data and put together a research plan.
“For those not familiar with research funding, the R01 is critical because it is the primary way in which researchers can secure the financial support necessary to conduct in-depth scientific investigations, including hiring staff, purchasing equipment and covering other operational costs,” Dr. Chiarella explained.
Dr. Chiarella’s and Dr. Stone’s Faculty Development Award projects both overlap with their R01 projects. Dr. Chiarella explained that both of his projects focus on the role of transmembrane protein 178 (Tmem178) as a novel endogenous inhibitory mechanism in asthma. “The Faculty Development Award is more narrowly focused on how Tmem178 regulates calcium responses in bronchial epithelial cells, while the R01 expands on this by investigating Tmem178's role in broader biological processes, such as lung inflammation, airway hyperresponsiveness and tissue remodeling. The R01 project also includes a genetic component, examining TMEM178 gene variants in human asthma cohorts, which adds another layer to our understanding of how Tmem178 regulates asthma progression,” he said.
Dr. Stone’s funding allows his team to continue studying the optimal implementation of penicillin allergy risk assessments and delabeling for surgical patients, transplant patients and obstetric patients. “This is a direct extension from work that I did on my Faculty Development Award, which was focused on developing and validating risk assessments for beta-lactam allergies and then seeing how well they would work in real life when we tried to use them clinically in different settings,” Dr. Stone said. “The award from the AAAAI Foundation allowed me to figure out how to best implement such assessments in the drug allergy clinic and hospital settings, and now, via the R01, we are branching out to the outpatient surgical, transplant and obstetric settings.”
Both Dr. Stone and Dr. Chiarella expressed that their Faculty Development Award projects allowed them to collect the preliminary data they needed for their R01s while also giving them the space to learn new skills and experiment with different techniques. “Because of the AAAAI Foundation award, I also had time for my mentors to give feedback, to attend grant writing workshops and to help me grow into someone who could write an R01 that would be worth funding,” Dr. Stone said.
“The Faculty Development Award has been instrumental in preparing me to achieve my funding goals, especially in securing the R01 grant. Without it, it would have been much more challenging to establish the scientific basis needed for the R01.”
Sergio E. Chiarella, MD, FAAAAI
Dr. Stone emphasized that making it to this point in his career wouldn’t have been possible without the network he’s built along the way. “It takes an enormous tribe of people to assemble and maintain one funded physician-scientist,” Dr. Stone said. “I could not have gotten an R01 without the support of my mentors, my collaborators, Vanderbilt, my previous funders, my patients and my family.”
What Advice do These Researchers Have for Obtaining R01s?
Dr. Chiarella: My advice is to build on smaller grants and gather as much preliminary data as possible. You should also aim to show that your project addresses a critical gap in knowledge and has the potential for significant impact. Also, reach out to mentors and collaborators for feedback on your grant application to strengthen your proposal before submission. Networking with more experienced researchers can provide invaluable insights and guidance as you navigate the application process.
Dr. Stone: Focus on developing the quality of your methods to be able to build a "methodological machine" that can tackle interesting problems and use that machine to go after an interesting problem you are genuinely passionate about, because you are going to be married to it for a long time. Practice clear and impactful writing and invest in your own growth as a person and a scientist. There is no way to succeed in science alone, so make sure that you have a support system full of people who are rooting for you. Finally, look for the funding agencies whose priorities and visions align with yours.
