Used for the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology’s comprehensive exam (written portion).

I.  Title Page (1 page); proposal title, student name, department affiliation

II. Project Summary and Narrative (approx. ½ page); *see below for details

III. Specific aims (1 page maximum)

IV. Research Strategy (15 pages); subdivided into 3 categories:

IVa. Significance (**see below for details)
IVb. Innovation (***see below for details)
IVc. Approach  

Each specific aim has the following categories under “Approach”:

Aim X
Introduction
Justification and Feasibility

Review of relevant literature incorporated
Preliminary studies (if available) incorporated

Research Design

Describe the overall strategy, methodology, and analyses to be used to accomplish the aims of the project.

Expected outcomes
Potential problems and alternative strategies 

V. Literature Cited

Additional Details:

*II. Project Summary and Narrative: The Project Summary serves as a “stand alone” description of the proposed work. State the application’s broad, long-term objectives and specific aims, making reference to the health-relatedness of the project (i.e., relevance). Describe concisely the research design and methods for achieving the stated goals. At the end of this section, under the separate header “Project Narrative” use no more than two or three sentences to describe the relevance of this research to public health.

**IVa. Significance: (about ½ page) the positive effect that the successful completion of your research will have on addressing a relevant problem.

Some ideas: 1) substantiate the critical need or problem that exists, that the proposed work will help meet/address. 2) follow with a statement …” this project is, therefore, significant because… “ 3) end this section by listing what would the benefits/impact be IF the need could indeed be addressed by your work.

***IVb. Innovation: (about ½ page) state how the proposed work is a new and substantially different way of addressing an important, NIH-relevant problem, which requires a departure from the status quo.

Some ideas: does the application challenge current research paradigms? Employ novel concepts, approaches, methodologies or instrumentation? Are the above novel to one field or novel in a broad sense?

1. document limits to current strategies or state why they are unsatisfactory
2. state that this proposed research is potentially innovative because…
3. summarize the advancements likely possible that would otherwise have been impossible without this new proposed approach