PCORI and Funding Opportunities

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In late August, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced that it was on track to spend over $400 million on research awards in 2013. PCORI Executive Director Dr. Joe Selbey shared that about $88.6 million had already been awarded through the broad funding announcements tied to their national research priorities.

Visit PCORI funding awards to see the primary research and pilot project awards and view their interactive map to find awards by state or priority area. You can also check out the Funding Center which contains all of the resources applicants need  in order to respond to available funding opportunities.

The PCORI Online Application System will open on February 5, 2014 for the Spring 2014 Cycle.  

Nutrition Recommendations Help Cancer Patients, and Other News

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Here are a few highlights of cancer research news that have caught our attention the past two weeks:

  • The Cancer Nutrition Consortium, formed by seven leading cancer centers, including the Dana Farber Cancer Center, aims to help cancer patients make healthy choices in their diet to support their treatment.
  • Negative BRCA testing may not always imply lower breast cancer risk, according to research in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
  •  The FDA announced the first regulatory approval of a high-throughput DNA sequencing device.
  • According to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, sugary drinks increase endometrial cancer risk.

BeeLine Reader is a browser extension that helps you read webpage text more quickly

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BeeLine Reader uses specific color schemes and color blends to help you read text faster and more efficiently. It transforms a webpage into a simple, uni-columned bulk of text that contains different color gradients to aid in reading more efficiently, i.e. helps with speed, repeating the same line of text, or skipping lines of text.

By reducing these line transition errors and speeding up the reading process, BeeLine ultimately helps with productivity and efficiency when reading several articles for a paper, project, or book chapter, for instance. To install the extension in Safari, Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, or Chrome, just drag the button for the color scheme of your choice to the bookmarks section of your browser. To convert a webpage into color-guided text, just click the bee icon in your bookmarks bar.

For Chrome and Firefox users, there are browser plugins (as opposed to mere bookmarklets) available. These have more functionality (custom color schemes, multiple font sizes, activation via keyboard shortcut) and are also much faster to use.