Mike's Blog

Gotta admit, the groundhog was right this year. DC is digging out of its second snowfall of the year. Typically, we get at most one snow event where enough snow falls and sticks around to impact the area. This latest was smaller than the previous but still closed schools and forced a two-hour delay for federal office buildings to open. Hopefully, we can quickly get back to our regularly scheduled climate change.

For those impacted by the cancellation of the January receipt date, our sincerest apologies. We had hoped to have the Tier notice out prior (since we submitted the notice to the Guide way back in August), but approval never came through and was delayed perhaps due to the shutdown. The notice has now been formally approved and should be out soon, if not already. For those concerned about pushing back submissions to May, keep in mind that January and May receipts dates are for the same fiscal year (FY27 in this case). Other than waiting longer to hear your scores, there will be no impact on funding.

As mentioned previously, we respectfully seek your indulgence with grant awards timelines. Guidance is coming through almost daily and each new guidance seems to create additional questions that require subsequent resolution and more guidance. In addition, as discussed, court orders are further impacting the pace of awards as we sort out who is affected. Also, for those whose grants were going to January ’26 Council, that closed session Council will be occurring at the end of March. Expect a busy spring and summer period similar to last year.

N3C (National Clinical Cohort Collaborative) should be back online as of March 2. We have initiated conversations with several institutions (specifically those involved with pilots) regarding the new DTAs (data transfer agreements). We also presented an overview during the CTSA Program webinar last week and will speak with the BIDS EC (Biostatistics, Biomedical Informatics, and Data Science Enterprise Committee). Also, we have secured access to the legacy features of N3C for a limited period of time for those needing to finish publications (e.g., already submitted a publication to the publication committee before March 2). If you believe you fall into these categories and have not been notified, please contact us.

For those wishing to jump right back into N3C, please understand that we will be transitioning certain functionalities to bring the infrastructure into alignment with NIH CADR (controlled access data repository) requirements as well as switching to the NIH-mandated authentication methodology. The CADR requirements apply to all NIH repositories. Most of these changes will be invisible to users, but you will likely find the FAQs evolving during this time.

Lastly, if you haven’t already heard, our NIH Director, Jay Bhattacharya, has been named Acting CDC Director, following the departure of the former Acting Director, Jim O’Neill who is being nominated to lead the National Science Foundation (NSF). At the same time, the CDC Principal Deputy Director, Ralph Abraham, has also recently resigned.

Somehow, 2026 having two months in a row with Friday the 13^th seems quite appropriate!

What I’m reading: David Brin’s Existence. An alien artifact discovered in Earth orbit sets off a series of global reactions. David focuses less on the nature of the aliens (which is quite unexpected nonetheless) and more on the various social and political responses, which are quite varied, enlightening and informative as well as largely disruptive. In general, humans never respond well to change, but it is still fascinating to observe.

Take the old left-right political axis. Stupid. From 18th century France! lumped aristos with fundies, libertarians, isolationists, imperialists, puritans, all on ‘right.’ Huh? ‘Left’ had intolerant tolerance fetishists! Socialist luddites! And all sides vs professionals. No wonder civil servants’ guild rebelled! Result? Wasted decades. Climate/water crisis. Terror. Overreaction. National fracture. Paranoia. Blamecasting. 

- David Brin, Existence