grant writing help

[grad]

Iam writing a grant in the field of molecular biology regarding a protein . There is no information about its function. Iam testing it as a marker for a chemotherapy. I have no experience in this field. So the question is - if the proposed hypothesis is not achieved and all i can say is it cannot be used as a marker(since no other information on its function), is it essential to have a backup plan ?

[zhanlin9391]

Great content and very helpful thank and keep up the good work.

[danfive]

Originally Posted by grad

Iam writing a grant in the field of molecular biology regarding a protein . There is no information about its function. Iam testing it as a marker for a chemotherapy. I have no experience in this field. So the question is - if the proposed hypothesis is not achieved and all i can say is it cannot be used as a marker(since no other information on its function), is it essential to have a backup plan ?

So you have a way to identify this marker-protein. Then you need a way to measure quantitatively the protein from well documented clinical samples.

That way you can run statistics, like roc curves, to determine the markers ability to predict health status. Path reports, medications, times of collections are all important.

So get yourself an antibody for this marker, plus a plan to collect the clinical samples. The more sub-groups in the clinical data (and reasonably sized sample sets) the more likely your marker will have some correlation to disease or treatment outcome.

Good luck.

[Warthaug]

Originally Posted by grad

Iam writing a grant in the field of molecular biology regarding a protein . There is no information about its function. Iam testing it as a marker for a chemotherapy. I have no experience in this field. So the question is - if the proposed hypothesis is not achieved and all i can say is it cannot be used as a marker(since no other information on its function), is it essential to have a backup plan ?

You do not need to know the function of a protein to study it, either as a marker, or for functionality (in fact, if we did this science would go no where). But I would assume that there is some reason why you suspect it would be a good marker - previous data showing an association with cancer/chemo, or perhaps a structural similarity to another protein which is linked to cancer/chemo. Just picking a protein at random is not a good idea; but even a weak basis for your choice will generate a lot more "cred" with the grant reviewers.

As for backup plans, you should always have one or two. In my experience, somewhere between 75% and 95% or proposed hypothesis will be wrong. As such you need to have alternate ideas and research plans to account for the inevitable incorrect hypothesis. Usually I explain my main idea, and then finish off that section of the grant with a paragraph or two describing other possibilities and how I would go about testing those alternate hypothesis.

Bryan

PS: is this for a class, or is it a real grant/fellowship application?