Thanks to decal and tomhobbes for pointing out what I had missed. I had considered applying as disadvantaged for the F31 myself (my disadvantaged background is summarized in my blog), but figured personally that I wanted to apply for grants on equal grounds with everyone else.
Also the higher-ups at NCI are familiar with my sponsors' work and would have recognized my training application as a logical extension of the lab's prior studies.
I had similar issues with my own F30 grant. The project I'm on is mainly supported by a NIBIB R01 and it made the most sense for my technique development work to go to NIBIB as well. I am happy to report that funding finally come through from NINDS about two years after the first submission (August 2006)--just in time for me to finish my PhD.
For me I think applying to the NIH had the opposite of the desired effect. After seeing what it's like to write a grant, receive feedback, resubmit, go through paperwork, delays, and beuracracy, I've gained the experience to say I'm not sure I want to rely on the NIH to pay my salary and advance my career.
It is a shame that NCI and other institutes don't participate in the F30 funding mechanism.
I would agree. I mean in an ideal world we should all apply for our individual fellowships. Unfortunately, the reality is that even the F31 mechanism has been taking cuts in at least two institutes I know of. As an example, NIBIB recently completely cut their F31. We MSTP types get little sympathy from the PhD types given that we have the training grant and institutional support.
So in reality the lack of a F30 doesn't really hurt us. What do we need F30s for anyway? Getting experience in grant writing/dealing with the NIH (lessons learned here!)? Padding our resumes? I know at least at my program the MSTP is not going to let you work for a lab that has questionable funding to support you. So you're never really in danger of not being able to continue doing your PhD. I've never seen a situation where a MSTP has wondered if they would continue to be supported or have money for the resources to complete their PhD.
But I have seen this for straight graduate students. I have seen cases where labs have run out of money or taken grad students on shaky footing and the grad students have had to turn to collaborators and apply for their own F31 grants in order to keep going on. Graduate schools are far more lenient about this than MSTPs it seems to me. There are professors I would never ever recommend someone work for due to funding and other reasons, but the PhD programs think they are just nifty to take graduate students.
So I guess my point is we can't really complain. Overall, even without our own individual grants, we're in a relatively privledged position. The major downside to the current situation for us is:
You are restricted to investigators with enough funding to take MD/PhD students. It was a discouraging shock to me, and has been a shock to other students in my program as well, to see how restricted your choice of investigator becomes once you get away from certain usual suspects in cell and molecular biology (and all its related forms like Neuro and Immuno and yadda yadda which is mostly cell and molecular biology techniques anyway). You only want to work for those professors who really can support you, so it's not so much of a bad thing.
But, if there was more funding for training this wouldn't be as much of an issue. The PIs would be able to take more students, generating more science in the process. A general sense of "we should all be writing our own training grants" (which some programs emphasize more than others) would kick in, especially in the labs that aren't so well funded, and your choices would expand. This seems even more acute in my own department where tenure track is almost impossible to obtain and the concept of startup funding is laughed at. But should this happen? I mean should we be putting out all this training money when it's so hard to get major grants when you're done? i.e. Should we be training more students for jobs that don't exist? This is a serious question. My friend recently met with a PI who actually refuses to take grad students because he feels there's not sufficient enough jobs to support them when they're done and can't stand the thought that their student might be wasting the skills they worked so hard to obtain.
As an aside, what gets under my skin is when programs have professors involved with MSTP applicants who could not or would not actually take students. I guess there's always the "well that investigator wasn't available that day" approach you will hear when you ask to interview with a certain professor and you don't get to meet with them (or any of the 5 others you listed). This is similarly deceptive when you think you're joining a program with many options for people for you to work with and in reality they are not available to you for various reasons.
But back to the point, I'm just glad I'm not the investigator who has to figure out how to deal with funding their underlings. I've watched as post-docs and assistant professors disappear under the tightening funding. I've seen how Bioengineering here stopped providing funding for their students while they are rotating, instead shifting that burden onto the professors the students are rotating with (this is only an issue for PhD not MD/PhD here as I understand it).
I just hope that the tight training grant situation for MSTPs doesn't translate into: "I'm not taking MSTP students because they can't bring in indvidual funding". I haven't seen this particular bias on the part of PhD investigators yet, even among those who don't particularly like us as students. As long as funding continues to be tight for the PhD students as well, I guess we don't have too much to worry about.
PS: Going to reorganize this one and turn it into a blog entry. "Dude, where's my funding?"
I'm also working on "Balance? What balance?!"
