Posted by Sandra Silvestri on January 10, 1998 at 17:50:00:
Hi all:
Just a message to let you all know that I have NOT died (no comments) but rather have been in New Orleans all week for lay review. I returned home to TWO very sick children late last night . I wanted you all to know that the task force report very definitely had an impact on the work we did even though the grants reviewed and submitted had a deadline of October 1st (before the task force report was approved by the board).
It is exciting times at JDF and although I cannot share the specifics of particular grants with you until the researchers are notified I can tell you that the new web site that all are working on promises to be GREATLY improved AND you will soon have access to all the abstracts we have funded so that you can read for yourselves what we have been doing in these review sessions.
We worked LONG days and ate together so as to not interrupt our work. We listened diligently, took notes, asked questions, fought and cried. But I think we all tried to do the best with what was given to us. This was an interum review session in that JDF has not issued any official RFAs (although I believe that there are near plans for such) and there will be a time lag before we begin to see changes in all the grants BUT there were "special grants" that were reviewed and these will be exciting to see how they turned out. I was not on "transplantation" but the work we did in "hormone action" impacts transplantation in the areas of cell engineering and complications. Even in this group there was a definite feeling of "change". We were told that the applicants would recieve written critiques (for the first time).
I was particularly grateful to the scientists who take time from their labs to make this possible. The amount of work that they do is amazing.
I am exhausted and my boys are very sick with the flu. They both have temps in the 102+range so I may only be a lurker until this passes.
I did want you to know that I was thinking of all of you and that you were in my thoughts in review as well. I will try to share more with you as it is available and as I come back to life.
Sandra