My *favorite* new factoid from the NIH … the oldest “new investigator” to date received his first R01 last year at age … 82. You go, guy!
On the other hand, a nobel laureate was triaged.
At the other end of the scale, confirmation at how extremely competitive the kangaroo (K99/R00) awards are and will remain. They are essentially reserved for the absolute best & brightest of the postdocs, those who clearly & overwhelmingly demonstrate their ability to quickly & successfully achieve independent grant funding.
Also learned that historical data show about 60% of K award recipients go on to receive additional NIH funding … though generally not until the 8th year from the start of their K award (ie, after K support ends). Here is the graph showing K Awardee Outcome from Dr. Khachaturian’s presentation.
Lots of good intel on the multiple PI option, including the fact that the contact PI cannot take the grant with him/her if he/she changes institutions. This is critical knowledge in an era of aggressively recruiting funded investigators … any grant award with multiple PIs ain’t walking. The PI’s share might follow him/her if scientifically appropriate, but not the award. The multiple PI option is also the reason for the cessation of NIH ranking tables – though apparently the NIH has been looking for an excuse to discontinue these for years. Wonder how many Universities will claim to be 5th in NIH funding next year …
Medical Writing, Editing & Grantsmanship 
drugmonkey said
ONLY 60% of K awardees go on to PI-dom? Can this be real? Going by the way reviewers of Ks behave you would think the only thing they are doing is selecting future productive independent investigators. A 60% hit rate suggests perhaps there is something wrong with the way Ks are reviewed :-).
Big shocker on the KangaR00s, btw. Of course they go to the fair-haired “in” crowd. You know, the ones that probably don’t actually need the help all that much. Still it IS a start at something better. And so what if only, say, 10% of them go to those who actually need the help, at least that’s a few more transitioned investigators….
…. Sad but true, Drugmonkey. I’ve added the bar graph from Dr. K’s talk laying out data through 2002 – please realize that this was a snapshot look at NIH funding attempts, so those at the far right are still in the midst of – or very outset of – their K award funding (ie, not expected to be applying for/receiving an R01 yet). For the K99s … we’ll see how the IC directors allocate these limited awards (150 NIH-wide for FY07) and what the study section writes up in the summary statements. – writedit