WIKIMEDIA, AREYNScientists who review National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications have recently awarded the highest scores to investigators who published more papers, were cited more often, and earned the most grant-related patents, according to an analysis of more than 130,000 funded proposals. The results were published this week (April 23) in Science.
“There is very little prior research on how effective peer-review committees are at deciding which grant applications to fund, and yet that is the major mechanism by which science funding is allocated in the United States and internationally,” said study coauthor Leila Agha of the Boston University Questrom School of Business.
When it comes to peer review, “most of the pontifications that you hear—most of the anger, editorials, suggestions for reform—have been remarkably data-free,” said Pierre Azoulay of the MIT Sloan School of Management who was not involved in the research. “So this paper, as far as I am concerned, is really a breath of fresh air.”
CELL, REDDY ET AL.Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, have used mitochondria-targeting restriction enzymes and transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) in the mammalian germline and early-stage mouse embryos to remove mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations. Their results were published in Cell this week (April 23).
