How do I unsubscribe and stop receiving search updates?
Getting Started
What is CRISPAlerts™?
CRISPAlerts™ are reports containing contact and detailed project information for all NIH-funded research. Conveniently emailed to you each week, they inform you of the newest approved projects. You can search seamlessly for results that match your keywords.
CRISPAlerts are designed to provide flexibility in your specific area of study. You can choose and modify your keywords at any time. You have complete control over your searches! Set searches by keyword, phrase, institution, or principal investigator. Include related medical or biological conditions as well as specific keywords in your terms. Your keywords are automatically wild-carded to pick up variations.
Who can benefit from using CRISPAlerts?
Anyone who can benefit from learning about the latest NIH-funded research can benefit from CRISPAlerts. The service is particularly useful for:
- Commercial Organizations to identify opinion leaders in certain fields or monitor competitors’ opinion leaders. Target sales prospects before they start a project.
- Academic or Funding Bodies to monitor the kinds of research other institutions are conducting and obtaining funding for.
- Researchers to find out what others in their field are doing and what types of projects are getting funded.
- Students can get help in researching their doctoral thesis. Identify opinion leaders or specialized institutions for job opportunities.
How do I get my results?
An email is sent for each search that you have set up. In this email there is a document that is compressed using WinZip®. Simply extract that file to a folder on your desktop or elsewhere.
The Basics
Advantages of CRISPAlerts over the NIH’s online database
CRISPAlerts make information retrieval much easier than a direct query. They extract data from the NIH database and render results in a compressed text delimited file. Files can be imported easily into most any desktop publishing program, where you can sort and track the results.
How often does CRISPAlerts perform my searches?
The moment that you submit a search, the CRISP database is queried so you normally get the initial batch of all existing matches within 30 minutes, depending on the traffic load at the time. After this initial search, CRISPAlerts checks the database once a week to see if there are new entries to send to you.
How do I know which level of service to sign up for?
It all depends on what you are trying to research. If you are looking at only one condition such as diabetes, then the Personal package may be appropriate. Commercial manufacturers could easily have a few hundred searches as they typically have several products that cover several different applications. We highly recommend that you don’t just set searches for the name of your product but also include related disease conditions as these research projects are not just about an individual product.
Is help available for choosing keywords and setting up searches?
Absolutely. Simply contact us and let us know what you need help with and we will do all that we can. We can assume complete control over the keyword management if you like. Normally there are a few initial phone call and emails to ensure that all keywords are covered. You must specifically request this using the Request Help form in your Client Login area.
Search Results
(Concerned about the searches you have set? Let us know through the contact form and we will review them)
Why have I not received any results at all. What has happened?
There could be a number of reasons for this and almost all of them are out of our control. The NIH database could be down for server maintenance or they could be having problems with their internet connection. CRISPAlerts.com could be having the same problem. Your stored searches will re-run automatically the following week and you will not lose any data. We are not able to manually re-initiate a search because we have a specific date that we are allowed to run these queries against their server.
Why have I not received any results at all to a specific search that I set?
Chances are there are no research projects currently being done that have your keyword in its description. But I would not recommend deleting that term because you definitely will want to know if any new projects are funded for that keyword.
Also, there is a chance that the search term was entered incorrectly. While our search functionality was designed to be very versatile and was tested extensively, there was unfortunately no way to cover every possible way that a person may enter a search term. Further, the NIH did set several limitations on how their database can be queried.
Why have I not received any new updates to a specific search that I set?
Chances are there are no research projects currently being done that have your keyword in its description. But I would not recommend deleting that term because you definitely will want to know if any new projects are funded for that keyword.
Why are some of the 'new' results have a start date that is in the past?
Some projects that are sent to you as ‘new’ projects may have a date that is in the past. These could be spin-off projects that originated from a core funded project or there could have been changes in a project’s specifications. The more likely reason is that they were not posted to the NIH database by the NIH until recently.
Can I change the format of how the search results are delivered?
Absolutely. There are three formats that you can choose from and change at any time.
Delimited (Database Ready) Formats:
- Excel® Format (comma delimited)
- Tab Delimited
Individually Paged Reports per Project:
- Text Document (Rich Text) Sample
How do I pause a specific search?
Simply click on the pause link to the right of your search term. This will keep the historical data archived.
How do I remove a specific search?
Make sure you want to delete a search term before you do so as you loose the history and archive file for that term. To delete, simply click on the delete link to the right of your search term.
Is there a way to combine all the files for all the search terms?
Each keyword will be emailed to you individually. If you have a lot of keyword notifications set up at CRISPAlerts.com, and find working with so many individual emails is cumbersome, we can combine them and send you a single consolidated file. You must email us and specifically request this though through the Support Form located in your Client Login area. This service may cause a small delay in receiving the weekly updates but this probably won’t be a problem as the results are sent on Sundays.
If working with multiple files is not an issue, the following are some tips to use to that will make it even easier to manage your results. There is an very reasonably priced program available at At mailutilities.com, called “Advanced Attachments Processor“ that will extract all the attachments in your email and save them to a designated location. Once all the emailed compressed files in this designated location, you can extract them all at once by selecting all of the files and then right clicking and choosing the ‘extract here’ option.
Search Optimization
Single word searches
Please enter a single word at a time. Try to identify the root part of the word and set that as the keyword as it is automatically wildcarded to find common variations. For example, if you want to get results for both diabetes and diabetics, then type in only ‘diabet’
Phrase searches
Be sure to use quotes around your phrase and enter one phrase at a time. It will not work otherwise. Like single word searches, try to find the root word if there are common variations. All words in the phrase searches are wildcarded.
Principal Investigator searches
If the person you are tracking has a common last name, we recommend including the first initial of their given name. The keywords are automatically wildcarded.
Institution or Center search
This is perhaps the hardest keyword to determine as it is not clear whether the NIH uses standardized abbreviations or not. If you are looking for Florida State, then type that in. However, if you are looking for Florida University you should type in Florida U. The keywords are automatically wildcarded.
Your Account
What if I have forgotten my password?
There is an option on the client login page where you can have your password emailed to you.
How do I change my password or email address?
After logging into the client login page, click on the “Edit Account”
How do I upgrade my account for more keywords?
After logging into the client login page, there is an option to modify your subscription which will be done through PayPal’s website.
How do I unsubscribe and stop receiving search updates?
After logging into the client login page, there is an option to cancel your subscription which will be done through PayPal’s website.
