In this newsletter you will find:
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Message from CEO Mike Hindery
Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for taking time to read this newsletter and learn about what is happening at PAVIR.
I hope this newsletter finds you and your family are safe and healthy. We are weathering a difficult time, yet I continue to find inspiration and comfort in the beauty and renewal of nature and in the resilient spirit of my communities, including you – my PAVIR community. We have all been experiencing unprecedented challenges these past several months due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, I believe that good will prevail.
Please take time during these beautiful fall days to get outside and enjoy nature. I know that distance learning is happening for many of you, yet take a break from the computer screen to take your children and yourself outside, with proper social distancing, even if it means just your backyard or a walk around the block. Explore bugs, birds, and the changing colors of bushes and trees. Take a deep breath and enjoy the sun on your face. Nature is resilient, so are people and so is PAVIR. We have hit rough patches in the past and survived. Pay attention to people, times, places and be flexible and courageous in your work and life. Our extraordinary times are calling forth daily acts of courage and flexibility, large and small, as we continuously adapt to unforeseeable changes. We will all get through this together.
PAVIR’s core purpose has not changed – we are here to serve the research community and advance Veteran and public health through innovative research. I believe that you are doing a fabulous job in these circumstances to conduct impactful research; I am proud of how you have remained so engaged and productive through these challenging times.
PAVIR is a research institute, so I cannot resist sharing this study, especially during this challenging time: “The Scientific Reason Why Showing Kindness Can Help Ease Anxiety.” Small acts of kindness go a long way – at work, at home, in your community. And it can be as simple as a smile or thank you. Remember to be kind, patient and generous.
This is a busy time of year: we have just ended FY20 and begun FY21; we have just concluded a record-setting sponsored research proposal period; we have made decisions about our employee benefit offerings and are preparing for Open Enrollment; and we are always welcoming new employees.
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"Nature is resilient, so are people and so is PAVIR."
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FY20 Financial Report
We are closing our financial books now and do not yet have our final year-end numbers. Because of the challenges of the final six months of the fiscal year due to the coronavirus pandemic, our numbers are below what was budgeted for FY20 and even what was achieved last year, FY19. Revenue of $700K from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), that enabled us to support 37 PIs and fund 72 employees, will be recognized in FY21. I strongly believe that the good deeds started this year will come to realization next year. In FY20 PAVIR Administration provided $953K of infrastructure support to the research enterprise and distributed more than $1.1M to PI ADM through the 8% allocation. In addition, we provided PIs with more than $99K in funding through our year-end match of PI ADM spending. More than $1.1M was spent in the three recharge centers (VMU, FACS and LSM). We are projecting both the number and dollar value of submitted proposals to far exceed the previous four years! Yet we project FY20 awarded dollars to be 35% less than FY19. We are closing the books for FY20, and in our next newsletter we will report on our FY20 financial and sponsored research activity.
FY21 Budget
The PAVIR Board approved our FY21 budget at its September meeting. We are budgeting $21.5M of sponsored research revenue and a total budget of approximately $32.7M, about the same as FY20, and nearly $1M of PI ADM 8% distribution. There is a great deal of uncertainty in the world, and we will be vigilant to monitor our financial performance throughout the year.
Affirmative Action Plan
We developed an annual Affirmative Action Plan, and we hold ourselves accountable to fulfilling it. Our FY20 goal was to recruit and appoint more disabled individuals and Veterans as managers, supervisors, research professionals and research technicians, as well as recruit more Hispanics in manager and supervisor roles. We have developed quarterly reporting on our Affirmative Action Plan to enable more timely review of our progress toward meeting our goals. We have some progress to celebrate, yet we will continue to focus on increasing the equity within and diversity of our work force. Please let me know if you have suggestions on how we can realize these important goals.
Retirement Plan Audit
PAVIR offers a generous retirement plan benefit to our employees, and it is an important element of each employee’s total compensation package. Each year we have an external audit of our Retirement Plan, and we recently completed our most recent audit. The auditors found no issues, and we received a “clean” audit report, which means there are no financial issues and that PAVIR’s Retirement Plan, accounting, and management practices meet and exceed all standards. You can be confident that we are managing our $26 million retirement plan appropriately and effectively.
In this newsletter, we are excited to share news about new employees and recent sponsored research awards as well as programs to improve our work environment. With your engagement and strong work, we will continue to be a voice for learning and research and a site where our basic research and clinical trials make a difference -- for Veterans, in our country and around the world.
I hope you enjoy reading about PAVIR’s news and some of the remarkable activities that make PAVIR a vibrant community. As always, I want to thank you for your ongoing partnership and support of PAVIR.
Our resilience starts with hope and ends with hope. Emily Dickinson wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul.” May hope be perched within you. Keep hope in your tool kit.
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Or, if the scientific angle moves you more, there are Einstein’s “3 Principles:”
1. Out of clutter, find simplicity
2. From discord, make harmony
3. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity
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Please let me know if have any questions or comments.
Please remember in these times that optimism, generosity, and understanding are highly contagious. We just need to share these values through social distancing.
Please remember to have patience with yourself and with others.
Remember: Wash your hands, social distance (6 feet), stay positive and wear a mask! We are in this together, and together we will get through this.
Mike
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Administrative Office - Winter Closure
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Winter Grant Submission Deadlines
PAVIR’s Pre-Award team is already preparing for the February 5 NIH proposal submission date. In light of PAVIR Winter Closure, please get on our calendars as soon by sending a link to or attachment of your program announcement. Notify us by sending a link to or attachment of your program announcement to PreAward@pavir.org as early as possible so that we may plan for adequate resources to assist you.
Your earliest notifications of intention to submit best positions your proposal for a smooth submission. For the February 5th NIH deadline, we would greatly appreciate hearing from you by Friday, 12/4/20.
Please be reminded of PAVIR’s 5-business day before deadline due date to submit your final documents, as we will not guarantee administration of an award for which PAVIR has not been given adequate time to review for regulatory and institutional compliance. Consider the following in your grant writing plans:
• PAVIR requires an internal budget for every submission. A PAVIR C&G Administrator (CGA) will develop this with you to assure your plans can be administered as proposed. To submit a final budget justification on time, connect with PreAward well in advance of internal deadline.
• If your submission involves collaborators at other institutions, e.g. subawards, PAVIR requires additional time to collect and review relevant materials. Each case will differ and needs to be discussed with a PAVIR CGA to outline how much additional time is needed.
• If you will be a collaborator on another PI’s proposal, i.e. subrecipient PI, the 5-business day deadline applies to the due date given to PAVIR by the Prime Awardee’s institution.
As your authorized institutional officials, PAVIR does not guarantee the submission of last-minute or late proposals. This is not only to review for regulatory and institutional compliance and ensure an error-free submission, but also out of respect to other PIs who have been in queue adhering to internal deadlines working with limited PAVIR staff resources. Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to submitting your exciting research!
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Welcome Associate Director of Research Administration
PAVIR is delighted to welcome Jennifer “Jen” Crockett, who joins PAVIR as the Associate Director of Research Administration. Jen is a seasoned Research Administrator and draws from broad experience across multiple Universities including MIT, Harvard School of Public Health, Columbia School of Nursing, Emory, and most recently University of Massachusetts, Boston.
Jen graduated with a B.S. in Education from University of Massachusetts, and has maintained a soft-spot for higher education ever since. She also holds an MBA from Suffolk University and an Executive Masters of Public Administration from Columbia. She is looking forward to completing her Masters of Education in Instructional Design in 2022.
We are excited to add Jen’s energy and experience to support both our Contract & Grant staff as well as the research endeavors of our esteemed investigators. As with all PAVIR administrators who continue to shelter in place, Jen will be working remotely and can be reached at jencrockett@pavir.org or 650-239-2807.
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Grants Streamlined
PAVIR has spent the last two years exploring and learning more about Streamlyne Research (“Streamlyne”), a cloud-based software for Research Administration that would further sophisticate PAVIR in this digital age. Last Spring, we formally committed to bringing Streamlyne to our environment, and have been engaged in the planning and preparation for implementation in 2021. Our goal in selecting Streamlyne is to up-level our service to the research community and increase our efficiency and effectiveness through system-to-system proposal submission, automated workflow, and robust reporting. Its singular platform will centrally house our pre-award, post-award, and compliance activities and documentation making it available wherever we can connect to the internet. It enables us to reduce errors as well as manual and non-value added work such as re-keying commonly used information. Simultaneously, it will increase transparency within our teams and streamline the life-cycle of sponsored projects.
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American Gastroenterological Association
AGA Distinguished Achievement
Award in Basic Science
AGA honored Harry B. Greenberg, MD, with the AGA Distinguished Achievement Award in Basic Science, for his major accomplishments in basic science research, which have significantly advanced the science and practice of gastroenterology.
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Throughout his career, Dr. Greenberg's incredible contributions over several decades contributed to the development of rotavirus vaccines and increased physicians' understanding of viral pathogenesis, particularly rotavirus, norovirus and hepatitis. Dr. Greenberg is an associate dean for research at Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California.
Dr. Greenberg has served as Associate Chief of Staff for Research for the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and recently addressed the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases on the timely topic of "Partnering to Discover, Develop, and Deliver Vaccines for Global Health."
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American Heart Association's Award of Meritorious Achievement
Dr. Paul Heidenreich is Chief of Medicine at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and is Professor and Vice-Chair for Quality in the Department of Medicine in the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a practicing non-invasive cardiologist and directs the VA's Medication Safety Quality Enhancement Research Initiative. Dr. Heidenreich has an extensive background in outcomes and health services research in the areas of technology assessment including use of screening with diagnostic tests and quality of care. He has served as Chair of the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association's Task force on Performance Measurement, and Chair of the American Heart Association’s Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research.
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Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award
Constance R. Chu, MD, received the award from the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
VA Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS) researcher Constance R. Chu, MD, receives the Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award during the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Photo by Michael Hill-Jackson)
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American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award
Thomas Rando, MD, PhD, has been elected to the esteemed American Academy of Arts and Sciences on April 23, 2020. The academy, one of the country’s most prestigious honorary societies, is a center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy-led studies in a variety of fields, including science policy, global security, social policy, and education.
Dr. Rando’s research focuses on stem cell biology and the biology of aging. He has been a pioneer in the field of systemic factors as regulators of cellular aging beginning with seminal studies done in his laboratory using the technique of heterochronic parabiosis. These studies have formed the foundation of current approaches to epigenetic rejuvenation. He is a scientific founder of Fountain Therapeutics whose mission is to develop therapies for diseases of aging based these fundamental biological principles. Dr. Rando is Director of the Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Stanford and Deputy Director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. He has received numerous awards including the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and the “Breakthroughs in Gerontology” Award from the American Federation for Aging Research. Dr. Rando is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Benefits Open Enrollment
 For benefit eligible employees, open enrollment will take place from 11/9/20 - 11/20/20 this year. Benefit elections will be effective 1/1/2021. Please note, if you take no action your current benefit elections will rollover except for FSA elections. More information will be provided soon.
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Update from Human Resources
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Welcome New Employees!
Welcome to PAVIR! We are happy to have you on board!
| Crockett, Jen |
Associate Director of Research Administration |
7/1/20 |
| Stelzer, Matilda |
Clinical Research Coordinator II |
7/1/20 |
| He, Han |
CR Research Assistant I |
7/16/20 |
| Martinez, Julian |
CR Lab Assistant I |
7/20/20 |
| Yang, Sharon |
LS Lab Assistant II |
7/28/20 |
| Park, GoonHo |
LS Research Biologist Scientist I |
8/1/20 |
| Yu, Kevin |
LS Lab Assistant II |
8/1/20 |
| Thomas, Samantha |
LS Lab Assistant - Animal Technician I |
8/03/20 |
| Ong, Laura |
CR Research Assistant I |
8/05/20 |
| Weng, Justine |
CR Economics Research Assistant I |
8/10/20 |
| Merrigan, Matthew |
CR Economics Research Assistant I |
8/10/20 |
| Tan, Jenna |
LS Lab Assistant II |
8/10/20 |
| Copeland, Laura |
CR CPT Consultant |
9/03/20 |
| Sul, Julian |
LS Research Assistant I |
9/23/20 |
| Greenberg, Jason |
CR Research Assistant I |
9/24/20 |
| Kwon, Sun Hyung |
LS Research Associate I |
10/01/20 |
| Lam, Alvin |
Post Award Analyst I |
10/01/20 |
| Dominicano, Ilaria |
CR Biostatistician II |
10/13/20 |
| Marceau, Eric |
LS Research Assistant I |
10/20/20 |
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HR Notes
Notifying HR/Payroll when staff depart
Please be aware of the important legal requirements regarding final pay to employees departing PAVIR. In most cases, California employees must receive their final paycheck on their last day of work or be paid a full day’s wages as penalties for every day it is delayed. Please notify Human Resources immediately when you hear of an employee who is planning to leave PAVIR. Human Resources and Payroll need several days to process final paychecks and prepare other materials required by California law. Same day notifications cannot be processed in time, nor should there ever be a case when an employee has already left PAVIR and notification takes place after the fact. We appreciate your attention to these important requirements.
Professional development // Pryor
PAVIR purchased access to virtual instructor-led seminars through Pryor Learning. This a pilot program for professional development and there is a limited number of training seats. PAVIR HR will be sending an updated list of available seminars soon. Email HR@pavir.org to register for the seminar of your choice!
Correct reporting of timecards -- hours worked, vacation, sick
Be sure to use, enjoy and accurately report your time off! Each year, all regular fulltime employees accrue vacation time. Your well-being, self-care and work/life balance are of the utmost importance to us. It’s natural for fewer vacation plans to be made during this time when most of us are staying home. Yet, it’s still important to take the time you’re given to rejuvenate, relax, have fun, and rest. It’s vital to your physical and mental health, and we want you to enjoy fun and downtime. The amount of vacation accrued by individual varies based on factors such as time with PAVIR. Look at your paystub and on ADP to see how much time you have. In addition to vacation time, you also have holidays and sick time, should you need it. Be mindful of your maximum accruals so you don’t miss out and stop accruing, and also be sure to remember to record your time off in ADP accurately when you do take it. Should you have questions about time off, please ask your supervisor, of feel free to email hr@pavir.org or payroll@pavir.org.
Updating addresses in ADP
To ensure we can contact you with important information like your W-2 and 401k updates, please confirm that your address is correct in ADP. After logging in navigate to Myself – My Information – Profile. Review and update your address on the left under the Personal Info section.
Diversity and Inclusion training - Traliant
In September, PAVIR launched a three-part Diversity & Inclusion Training built to inspire positive change. We are happy to have received an enthusiastic response with 60% of our employees taking the time to view the first video about the effects of Microaggressions and how to respond to them. Three employees were randomly picked to receive gift cards. Two more videos will be released in the upcoming months: a 20-minute course about unconscious bias and a 35-minute course about Diversity, Inclusion and Sensitivity.
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Quarterly Spirit of Your Lab Contest
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This year, PAVIR introduced a new quarterly Spirit of Your Lab Raffle to inspire teamwork, camaraderie and creativity. The Spirit of Your Lab photos, videos, and collages we received were fun and creative – thanks to everyone who participated! The randomly selected winner of the raffle was the Adamson Lab. We look forward to receiving many more fun responses from our employees when we announce the next raffle in the upcoming weeks!
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Technology Update
Electronic Devices and Services Policy
Earlier this year PAVIR updated its Electronic Devices and Services Policy. Please familiarize yourself with the policy located here: https://pavir.org/resources/policies/electronic-devices-and-services-policy/. We added to the policy the ability to request an allowance for the use of mobile phones, home internet or both.
Spoofed Email
We are aware that some PAVIR employees have received emails that say they are from Michael Hindery, but they are not. This is what’s called Email Spoofing. The ones we’ve seen lately have Mike’s name, but the email address is clearly not his. Unfortunately, people can put any name they want on their outgoing email and there’s nothing we can do about it. Whenever you receive an email asking you to take some action, give it some scrutiny. Often spammers will make it look like it is from Office 365 asking you to click on something. Frequently there are misspellings, or bad use of the English language. If you’re not sure and want a second opinion, do not just hit the Forward button. That leaves the email as active and could do harm to the system of the person to whom you’re sending it. You can either take a snippet and paste it in an email, or you can forward the email as an attachment to Support@Lanlogic.com to ask for help. If it’s clearly spam there is no need to let us know.
Stanford IT Support
Did you know that any Stanford faculty, staff or affiliate can get assistance from the School of Medicine, Technology Digital Solutions (TDS), and/or Stanford University IT (UIT)? You can reach them at these numbers:
TDS – (650) 725-8000
UIT – (650) 725-HELP (4357)
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COVID-19 Flexibilities Under OMB
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Below is a summary of federal guidance that provides administrative relief to grant recipients, especially pertaining to the charging of personnel salaries and benefits to awards during shelter-in-place. PIs with active awards at PAVIR should review this guidance and contact their Contract & Grant Analyst with any questions.
As the US entered a national slowdown/shutdown due to COVID-19 in March 2020, OMB issued multiple memos to provide administrative relief to grant recipients impacted by the crisis.
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