Abstract Or101: Evaluating the National Institutes of Health Pipeline for Resuscitation Science Investigators

Background: The pipeline of investigators studying resuscitation science and their contributions to the field after attaining research independence are largely unknown. Our objective was to identify and compare the number of National Institutes of Health (NIH) K awardees studying CA vs. stroke research and determine both cohorts’ success rates in transitioning to independent R01 funding. Methods: The NIH RePORTER database was queried from 2008 to 2018 to identify CA grants using published methodology. The CA grants were filtered by activity code to identify mentored individual K awards (defined as K01, K08, K23, or K99). A second query was then performed using principal investigators (PIs) for each K award, and the results were filtered to identify all R01 grants with the former K award recipients listed as the contact PI/PD or other PI/project lead. Stroke grants from the same epoch were exported from the NIH categorical spending reports, where stroke research is a distinct line item. Subsequent R01 funding for the stroke grants was identified using the above process. The outcome measures include: total K awards, R01 conversion within 5 or 7 years from K award receipt, and the proportion of awardees who remained focused on CA or stroke research at the R01 level. Data were presented as counts, proportions, and median/interquartile ranges. Proportions were compared using the Chi-Square test or Fisher’s exact test. P-values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: A total of 857 CA grants were identified, including 272 individual awards, compared to 8,520 stroke grants with 2,788 individual awards. K awards comprised 11.4% of CA grants versus 6.6% for stroke grants (p=0.003). The R01 conversion rate was 51.6% for CA and 57.3% for stroke (p=0.555). The median transition time from K to R01 was 5.5 years (IQR 4-6) for CA and 5 years (IQR 4-7) for stroke. CA K awardees secured 27 funded R01s, while stroke counterparts received 163. A total of 48.1% of CA K awardees continued CA research at the R01 level, versus 63.8% for stroke (p=0.121). Conclusion: Although the volume of federally funded grants and K awards focused on CA research is significantly smaller than that of stroke research, the outputs for both fields appear similar. More than half of R01 awards from the CA cohort departed from their original content focus. These findings should help inform efforts to expand the resuscitation science young investigator pipeline.