Mentoring and Patient-Oriented Research in Mind and Body Practices

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Over the past 17 years Dr. Natalia Morone established her research career in patient-oriented research (POR) and integrative nonpharmacological interventions to treat chronic pain, particularly mindfulness interventions for chronic low back pain (cLBP). Her research portfolio also extends into mindfulness delivered via electronic Health (eHealth) and telehealth. She has an established record of research, publications, teaching, and mentoring. Her KL2 award and R01 focused on integrative treatment for cLBP and her R34 expanded into mindfulness eHealth for hypertension. Her current UH3 award seeks to translate mindfulness for the treatment of cLBP into the clinical setting via a pragmatic clinical trial. She mentors medical students, residents, fellows, post-docs, and junior faculty. Mentees have gone on to receive federal grant funding, have published their work in peer-reviewed journals and have presented their work both locally and nationally. Working with the pipeline of the future biomedical research workforce is critical to training the next generation of complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) investigators. She has a long-standing commitment to fostering the careers of underrepresented groups (URGs) in research and is currently the multi-PI of a U-award to retain URGs in research through the evaluation of a 12-month career development intervention. There is a growing evidence base that mind and body practices are effective treatment for chronic medical conditions. Yet implementation into clinical practice has not widely occurred. Electronic health approaches may also facilitate integration of mind and body practices into the clinical setting. This award will be key to providing the dedicated protected time necessary for expanding the candidate's research and increasing her mentoring capacity in the implementation of mind and body practices for chronic medical conditions and harnessing technology to facilitate engagement of patients in these practices. She will leverage the Boston University Clinical and Translational Science Institute's (BU CTSI) rich resources for training, education, and supporting research to ensure the success of her mentees. The project Aims are to: 1. Implement mind and body practices for chronic medical conditions into clinical care. 2. Harness technology to deliver mind and body practices for chronic medical conditions. 3. Mentor and train the next generation of integrative medicine investigators in rigorous mind and body practices in patient-oriented clinical research. The K24 research projects will expand Dr. Morone's research into implementation science and eHealth. This proposal has been developed to provide a rich source of research projects for mentees that will develop the pipeline of researchers in POR and CIM and advance the field of mindfulness for chronic medical conditions through implementation science and eHealth. The abundant resources of the BU CTSI will be a necessary component to mentoring. Dr. Morone has devoted over 8 years to increasing the diversity of URGs in research and this will continue to be a focus of her mentoring for this award.