[Xenopus] Xenopus PIs: Xenbase letters of support

[National Xenopus Resource]

Dear Colleagues 



Below are some details and template for the 2 letters of support that Xenbase needs from its users. Please email letter to me aaron.zorn at cchmc.org and I will collate them and pass them on to the NIH. If you have already sent me letter thank you! 



First letter: 

As we mentioned at the PIs meeting, due to unforeseen infrastructure problems with the NICHD building, the release of the Program Announcement that would allow us to submit a Xenbase renewal has been substantially delayed. Given the standard timeline for application receipts, study section review and council decisions, renewed funding could not possibly begin until 4-6 month after the end of our current grant. This gap in funding would result a closure of Xenbase and the need to layoff the staff. James Coulombe our program officer at NICHD is aware of the problem and is doing his best to secure at bridge funding. We need your letter of support to keep Xenbase operational. 



Draft letter for bridge funding – please modify to use your own words: 







James N. Coulombe, Ph.D. Program Director, Developmental Genetics and Systems Developmental Biology Developmental Biology and Structural Variation Branch Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development RM 4B01, MSC 7510 6100 Executive Blvd Bethesda, MD 20892-7510 



· Surprised to hear that Xenbase will have a gap in funding 

· Urge NICHD to provide necessary bridge funding 

· Explain why Xenbase is critical to your NIH (NICHD) – funded research program. Please use specific example of how you use Xenbase and cite your grant numbers. 

· If you have submitted any data to Xenbase please explain how Xenbase’s data sharing infrastructure helps you make your findings available to the community. 

· Describe how your productivity might be hampered if Xenbase ceased to exist for 6 months. 

· Preserving Xenbase saves resources in the end due to: 1) the need to hire and retrain new Xenbase staff if there is a gap, 2) extra time and money individual labs will need to expend to replicate Xenbase services in each lab if there is gap. 



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Second letter: 

Peter Vize and I also need a letter of support from you that we will include in the Xenbase renewal application. This letter should not mention bridge funding but support renewal of Xenbase and then just modify the body of the text from the bridge funding letter explain how you use Xenbase in your NIH-funded research using specific examples. Address to: 



Peter D. Vize Aaron M. Zorn 

Director Xenbase Director Xenbase 

Dept. of Biological Science Cincinnati Children’s Hospital 

University of Calgary University of Cincinnati 

2500 University Drive NW 240 Sabin Way 

Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 Cincinnati OH 45229 

Canada phone 403 220 8502 USA phone 513 636 3770 




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