Institutional Career Development

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Contact PD/PI: Murphy, Timothy F Inst-Career-Dev-001 (493) KL2 Mentored Career Development Award. The CTSA-Linked KL2 mentored career development award program (KL2 program) will strive to engage talented and motivated scholars to join the clinical and translational science workforce with the goal of developing new diagnostic, preventive, and therapeutic interventions for diseases, with an emphasis on addressing health disparities. The KL2 program has stimulated clinical and translational research across the Buffalo Translational Consortium (BTC) by attracting, mentoring, training and engaging scholars with diverse cultural, ethnic, racial and professional backgrounds and across scientific disciplines (i.e. RN-PhDs, PharmDs, PhDs, MDs, and/or DDS-PhDs). These scholars receive an interprofessional and interdisciplinary education where they learn with, about, and from each other, enabling effective collaboration and discoveries in clinical and translational research. In the proposed funding period, the KL2 program will train at least four junior faculty physician scientist scholars by supporting them for two years on their path to independence, with the option of receiving an additional third year of institutional funding upon completion of the program curriculum and objective evaluation of scholarly accomplishments. The program is complemented by and integrated with the institutionally-funded BTC scholars program, allowing us to train five (three in years 1-3; two in years 3-5) additional scholars under the same terms during the next funding period. Integration of all scholars’ activities under our well-established mentoring and training program brings together a critical mass of diverse professional experiences and talent benefiting all involved. The KL2 program has three specific aims towards these goals are: 1) attract skilled and motivated early career clinical and translational investigators from a broad range of health science disciplines, including individuals underrepresented in health science; 2) provide comprehensive tailored support to mentor and train the scholars to promote pathways to independence; and 3) engage scholars, facilitate interactions and enhance communications with the community to raise awareness and accelerate solutions for health disparities. Innovations in our KL2 program include the awarding of digital badges followed by micro-credentials, which are competency-based documentation of training in specific areas; inclusion of community agency advisors and partners on scholars’ mentoring teams, aligning with our goal to address health disparities in our community; and extensive partnering with other CTSA hubs. The program will mentor, train and develop KL2 scholars’ professional skills and facilitate a seamless transition to their next career level in the clinical and translational workforce. The overall goal of this KL2 program is to develop the next generation of 21st century leaders whose backgrounds mirror the diversity of our community to enhance excellence in clinical and translational research, locally and across the nation.