Your new grant names equipment you don't have

A seven-step play for a lab equipment reseller. It starts from NIH RePORTER, stacks PubMed and Firecrawl on top, and ends in a message to the principal investigator that is useful before anyone replies.

Deploy in Glider

Installs this workflow, five project tables and a draft campaign. Source access and any external outputs are checked before research.

Category: Health and life sciences
Sources: 3
Steps: 7

The workflow

TriggerNIH RePORTERNew awards: PI, institution, aims and amount
Evidence
PubMedThe instruments named in the PI's methods sections FirecrawlThe core facility's booking waits and rates
Artifact
What you hand overA quote sized to the funded aims, compared against what the lab spends waiting for and renting the core's instrument.
Contact
GliderFinds the principal investigator, with a verified work email and a phone
Message
Send itFrom your own mailboxes, evidence attached

Why it earns attention

A new grant is money with a plan attached. When the plan depends on an instrument the lab borrows from a busy core facility, the case for buying one writes itself.

The play in seven steps

01
Catch new awards
NIH RePORTER
What you pull
Newly funded projects: PI, institution, start date, total amount and the specific aims in the abstract.
Why it matters
The aims say what work the lab will do for five years. The money is already there.
Example
R01 · started Sept 1 · $2.4M over 5 years · aims rely on single-cell RNA sequencing
02
See what instruments they use
PubMed
What you pull
The PI's recent papers, methods sections only: instruments, and whether they credit a core facility.
Why it matters
If the lab borrows the instrument from a core, it does not own one. The papers prove it.
Example
3 recent papers · all list the institution's genomics core · same sequencer each time
03
Measure the wait
Firecrawl
What you pull
The core facility's pages: booking lead time, hourly or per-run rates, and priority rules.
Why it matters
A long wait and a per-run fee are the cost of not owning one. That is the comparison the PI will make.
Example
Core lists a 5-week booking wait · $1,100 per run · internal rate
04
Build the quote
Your artifact
What you build
A quote for an instrument sized to the aims, with the core's cost and wait over the grant period next to it.
Why it works
The PI can take one page to their department chair to justify the purchase out of the grant.
Example
Benchtop unit · $185k · pays back against core fees in about 3 years · no wait
05
Check before you send
Some institutions require core use or central purchasing. Check the grant's equipment budget and the institution's rules before quoting.
06
Find the principal investigator in Glider
Glider
Search for
Principal investigatorLab managerDepartment administratorCore facility director
Why them
The PI controls the grant budget. The lab manager books the core and feels the wait every week.
What you get
A work email and a direct phone, with the email verified before it goes into a sequence.
07
Send the evidence, then run the first test
To: the principal investigatorEvery line comes from a step above
Congratulations on the R01.¹ Your aims rely on single-cell sequencing, and your last three papers used the genomics core's instrument,² which lists a five-week wait and $1,100 a run.³ I priced a benchtop unit sized to your aims against those fees over the grant.⁴ Want to see the numbers?
- Facts from the data (the number is the step)
- What you built for them
- One small ask
Why it works
It shows you read their aims and their papers, and it makes the case in the terms a PI uses: time to data and grant dollars.
First test
Fifteen new awards whose aims name a technique the PI previously outsourced.
Success looks like
Three demos out of twenty new awards.