CLINICAL RESEARCH CURRICULUM AWARD

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This application represents the institutional response from Tulane University to the Research Curriculum Award (RFA OD-00-002). This award was created by the NIH to address the growing national concern over the shortage of academic clinical investigators by training individuals interested in becoming effective clinical scientists. The overall goal of this application is to obtain a Clinical Research Curriculum Award (CRCA) that will support the establishment of a new, structured 2-year program to develop effective clinical researchers from promising advanced trainees at Tulane and Xavier Universities at an early phase of their training. The Tulane CRCA Program represents a newly-developed graduate training program in clinical investigation that is a joint educational enterprise of the Tulane Schools of Medicine and Public Health and Tropical Medicine. This program will bring together trainees from a diverse background, including Internal Medicine, Pediatrics and Surgery from Tulane Medical School, the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, the Tulane Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy, to enable the development and training of creative, independent, and productive clinical investigators. We believe the opening of the CRCA curriculum to additional trainees outside of Tulane Medical Center (i.e., inclusion of both trainees with Pharm D and PhD degrees in biomedical engineering) expands the group of trainees resulting in a broad base of individuals to become independent, funded and committed clinical investigators. As part of the development of this proposal, a new Master of Science in Public Health (Clinical Research) 2- year program at Tulane University Medical Center has been established. The core curriculum includes 23 core credit hours and include courses in biostatistics, epidemiology, health systems management, mechanisms of human disease, genetics of complex disorders and therapeutic responsiveness plus a seminar series (Topics in Clinical Research) and a mentored clinical research project. Although this is a rigorous curriculum, the frequency and sequence of the MSPH (Clinical Research) curriculum has been designed to ensure that the CRCA trainees will be able to attend and complete all degree requirements, complete a mentored clinical research project (with submission of a manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal) and meet all requirements of their respective clinical training programs during their normal training period. The CRCA Award will support the establishment of a formal Clinical Research Curriculum at Tulane University and create an infrastructure of dedicated faculty who provide in-depth mentorship of clinical research. Trainees in the Tulane CRCA Program will acquire the necessary skills to design and conduct clinical investigations into emerging medical treatments and technologies, new diagnostic techniques, and new approaches to the study of pathobiology.