essentially spread the word and kill tumor cells throughout the body.


That is the holy grail for a lot of immunology research. The cool thing about IR is that we’re well positioned to be the ones who deliver that magic potion right into the heart of the tumor so that patients can activate the immune response.


How did the Ring Grant impact your research? RS: The Ring Grant was pivotal. At the time, I was a new junior faculty member at MD Anderson. I always knew I wanted to do this type of translational research, and the challenge is finding the time and the funding to do it. Small grants like the Pilot Grant, which SIR Foundation was very generous to support me with, are great for getting a little bit of data, but they don’t always provide the time to step back and invest yourself in a big- picture, long-term project. That’s what the SIR Foundation Ring Grant provided: It allowed me the time and the resources to invest what I needed to take that big step into a large, long-term project, which can lead to a career-size grant.


Have you been able to gain additional funding since receiving the Ring Grant? RS: Yes. I was able to use the data from the Ring Grant to successfully get an R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health. That is a 3-year, $500,000 grant, which we have recently been able to turn into an R01, which is a 5-year, $2.5 million grant.


Because the Ring Grant is a competitive source of funding, what recommendations would you have to other IRs who may want to apply for it? RS: The first thing is that I just encourage people to apply. I feel that the first hurdle to research is mental— people don’t know what it takes to receive a grant, or there is a mystique around what a grant is and how to


write one—and I think people can psych themselves out about the entire process.


My second recommendation is to ask for advice often. I now sit on review panels, and you can almost immediately put each grant application into one of two buckets: whether someone who knew what they were doing helped write the grant, or whether the author just winged it. The former is going to have a much better chance of getting funded.


The goal of the Ring Grant is to help you gain access to something like NIH funding, so reviewers want to see some degree of self-awareness from the applicant when they’re making their Ring Grant. If they know to seek help with that first grant, you can trust they will know the path to writing a larger grant. So, my main advice is to find someone who can show you the ropes. There are plenty of us out there who are happy to help young researchers.


Has your research scope expanded since you were awarded the Ring Grant? RS: Absolutely. Part of the benefit the Ring Grant afforded me was time and space to gain additional grants. When that happens, you are no longer forced to focus on just one project, and you have a bit of wiggle room to think more broadly.


My initial project led to other ideas and hypotheses which led to the R01 grant.


The R01 is not a copy/paste from the Ring Grant; it evolved from the time and knowledge gained from the Ring Grant. It’s helpful, because you see things every day in the procedure room and in clinic that you may not understand or are curious to learn more about. As a result, in the lab we’re studying two or three vastly different topics, from immunology to tumor biology to thrombosis. That comes from having the time to get your feet planted in the lab and branch out and explore those questions you come across.


Are there any additional opportunities you would encourage young researchers to explore? RS: Clinical research is fantastic, and we need to encourage more IR researchers to pursue it. But I would also encourage people to embrace the curiosity that may have originally driven them to medicine in the first place and apply it in the translational setting. That’s where you can explore ideas in ways that you could never do clinically. I really encourage folks to be creative and think broadly and consider the opportunities of translational research in addition to their clinical research.


Learn more about the Dr. Ernest J. Ring Academic Development


Grant at sirfoundation.org/get-funded/ grants/ernest-ring-grant.


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