Fellowship and job applications, read by people who have won them
Most applications are not rejected for bad science. They are rejected because a reviewer could not tell what was being proposed, why it needed this candidate, or whether it was feasible. We read your draft the way a panel will, tell you where confidence breaks, and work through the fix with you.
Fellowship and grant applications
NIH F31, F32 and K-series, plus EMBO, HFSP, Marie Curie and institutional awards. We work from the review criteria the funder actually publishes, so the feedback is about what will be scored rather than about style.
Specific Aims
The page that decides your score. We work on whether the aims are genuinely separable, whether Aim 1 is achievable enough to make the rest credible, and whether the significance is stated in terms a panel outside your subfield will accept.
Training plan and sponsor sections
For F and K mechanisms the training plan is scored, not decorative. We look at whether the proposed training is specific, whether it plausibly requires this sponsor and this environment, and whether the sponsor statement supports the candidate rather than the project.
Candidate sections
Fellowship reviewers are assessing you as much as the science. We work on how a non-linear path, a gap, or a change of field is framed so it reads as trajectory rather than as something to explain away.
Resubmissions
Where the introduction to the resubmission does most of the work. We go through the summary statement with you, separate the criticisms that need new data from the ones that need clearer writing, and structure the response so a returning reviewer can see what changed.
Structural biology and cryo-EM specifics
Feasibility is where these applications usually lose points. Sample behaviour, why the resolution you claim is reachable, whether the microscope access is real, what happens if the structure does not come. This is our own field, so the technical critique is substantive rather than editorial.
You can see the criteria we work from on any opportunity in our funding database, which generates a reviewer-criteria outline for each mechanism.
Job and faculty applications
Postdoc, staff scientist, facility and tenure-track applications, plus the interview stages that follow. We have sat on both sides of these searches and hire into this field ourselves.
CV and cover letter
Academic CVs bury the things a hiring committee is scanning for. We restructure so your actual contribution to each paper is legible, and make the cover letter argue for a specific role instead of describing your thesis.
Research statement
The document that most often reads as a list of past projects. We work on whether it proposes a program that is independent of your postdoc lab, and whether the first three years are fundable.
Facility and staff scientist roles
A different pitch from a faculty application, and most applicants use the same materials for both. These roles hire for service, method breadth, troubleshooting and user support, so the evidence has to be reframed around what you can run and fix.
Chalk talk and interview preparation
Mock chalk talks with real interruption, which is what the format is actually testing. We also work on the questions that reliably decide these interviews: what you would bring with you, what you would need, and what your first grant would be.
Industry transitions
Translating an academic record for structural biology and cryo-EM roles in industry, where the reader wants throughput, reproducibility and collaboration, and where a publication list on its own does not answer the question.
Currently applying? Our cryo-EM job board lists open positions, and salary data is useful before you negotiate.
How it works
Send what you have
Even an outline. Tell us the mechanism or the role and the deadline.
We scope and quote
You get our read on what would actually move the score, and a price, before you commit.
Written comments, then a call
Specific, line-level and structural comments, then a conversation about the ones that need discussion.
Tell us what you're working on
Two minutes. We reply with what we'd suggest and a quote.
Questions
Do you write the application for me?
No, and you should not want us to. For NIH fellowships the candidate sections are scored as evidence about you, and reviewers who read hundreds of these can tell when the voice in the training plan is not the voice in the rest. What we do is read what you have written, tell you where a reviewer will lose confidence and why, and work through the fix with you. That is also the version that helps you the next time you write one.
Is it acceptable to get outside help on a fellowship application?
Yes. Professional editing and mentorship are ordinary parts of how competitive applications get written, and there is no requirement that you write in isolation. What matters is that the work and the words are yours. If your programme or institution has its own policy on outside assistance, follow it, and tell us if it changes what you can accept.
How much does it cost?
It is quoted per request, because the work is very different depending on what you send. Reviewing a Specific Aims page is not the same job as working through a resubmission or preparing for a chalk talk. Send us what you have and we will tell you what we would suggest and what it would cost before you commit to anything.
How close to a deadline can you take something on?
Ask. Capacity varies, and a tight deadline is not automatically a no, but it does change what is useful. Two days before submission we can catch things that will actively cost you points; we cannot rebuild an aims structure. Tell us the deadline in your first message and we will be straight with you about what is worth doing in the time available.
What if my field is not cryo-EM or structural biology?
Fellowship structure, reviewer psychology and application strategy carry across biomedical science, so the aims, training plan and candidate sections are still work we can do. What we cannot give you outside our field is a technical feasibility critique, which is a real part of the value. If your application will turn on domain specifics we do not know, we will say so rather than take the work.
Who actually reads my application?
Working scientists at the postdoc level and above, in structural biology and adjacent fields, who have written and won these applications themselves. Your draft is not shared beyond the person reviewing it, and it is not used for anything other than your review.