UAB: Comprehensive Cancer Center

May 6, 2011

Etty Benveniste, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Cell Biology and Comprehensive Cancer Center senior scientist, has been selected to join scientific experts from across the country on a new council that will begin meeting in May to advise the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health on the peer review of NIH grant applications in scientific review groups at CSR.

This new council is charged with enhancing CSR's operations; it replaces the NIH Peer Review Advisory Committee, which advised the CSR director, the NIH director and NIH associate director for extramural research.

The group’s input will help ensure the vitality of CSR peer-review groups so the billions of dollars NIH invests in biomedical research grants each year advances research with the most promise for saving lives and improving public health. The council will also provide input concerning CSR’s policies and practices related to the receipt and referral of NIH grant applications to CSR review groups.