O. Kenrik Duru, MD, MSHS Professor of Medicine at UCLA Investigator (Disparities), CTSI Special Populations

1. A tactical approach to writing
your grant proposal
O. Kenrik Duru, MD, MSHS
UCLA CTSI R Workshop
December 17, 2020

2. 4-6 month time-line: 1st month
• Pick a high-impact topic you love and get excited
to be creative
– should be natural extension of your K work
• Draft specific aims
• Start to put together scientific team
• Meet w/ admin team – map out calendar and
divide up tasks
– Find out who can help you and what key dates are (ex:
resources, budget, DSMP, figures, references etc. . . )
– Set target dates to get drafts to Co-Is
• Consider vacations, ward attending etc.
– Schedule CTSI grant studio if possible

3. 3-4 months out:
Meet with your Program Official
• Remember that most PO’s love seeing K
awardees get R01s
– relationship evolves during your K
• Phone vs. email?
• Will he/she will read your specific aims?
• Suggestions re: study section?
• (Cover letter can mention your PO)
• (Send thank you email and copy of grant)

4. Putting Together your Team: think
both as a reviewer and as PI
• Interdisciplinary teams increasingly
attractive
• Each team member needs to be making
unique/complimentary contribution
• Consider linking with strengths of your
institution
– Will be attractive to reviewers
– Good opportunity to expand your network

5. Putting Your Team Together
(Continued)
• Think carefully about subcontracts
(allow extra time)
• Balance of seniority levels
• Choose people you want to work with

6. Developing your Team
Leadership Style
• Embrace the role of PI (gradual process
evolving over K period)
– Emulate PI’s you admire
– (Consider formal leadership training)
• Be very clear to Co-I’s what is expected
– What is exact role?
– How many meetings? Format? Travel?
– What % time covered?
– Authorship?

7. Start Budget Early
• Tension between being economical and
practical (talk to your PO)
– Agencies like low-budget projects BUT
– Make sure you can do the work!
• also likely to get across the board cut
– Budget justification is CRITICAL
• Investigator time:
– As new investigator consider 35% time
– 5% time for Co-Is can be red flag to reviewers

8. Don’t under-budget:
• Project Director salary
• Ground transportation for staff
• Cell phones and service
• Translations
• Data storage (consider scanning)
• Publication fees

9. Writing the Grant
• Approach (Methods) is MOST important
– Write first. Do not wait.
• Remember your audience
– Few MDs
– May know nothing about your area of research
– Make it easy on the reviewer
• White space, figures, tables, colors

10. Telling your Story:
Preliminary Studies
• Purpose:
– (Findings that support your hypotheses)
– Most important: to show the reviewer your
team has experience to do the project

11. Show that you have considered
potential obstacles/tradeoffs
and how you will address them
• Discuss trade-offs of design decisions
– Example: randomizing at individual vs.
cluster
– Can do throughout or in summary section
towards end of approach section
– How will you deal with potential problems?
• Refer to budget throughout

12. Make it Easy for the Reviewer
• Use exact language from program
announcement
– “the stated aim of this program announcement is XXX and
our project addresses this by . . . . “
• Remind reviewer of specific review criteria and
state specifically how your project addresses.
– Consider bulleted section at the end
• Significance . .
• Investigators
• Innovation
• Approach
• Environment

13. Avoid Common Pitfalls
• Write face page (abstract) early and
circulate
• Don’t be unjustifiably overambitious
• Convince reviewer of feasibility
– Preliminary studies
– Benchmarks
– Alternative plans
– Institutional support
• HAVE FUN