UNC-CH Mentored Clinical Research Scholar Program

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DESCRIPTION (Provided by the applicant): The University of North Carolina (UNC) has a long tradition of nurturing the early research careers of academic physicians and dentists. With the full commitment and resources from University administration at the highest level, much of the focus of research career development in UNC's Schools of Medicine and Dentistry has now evolved from basic science toward more translational and patient-oriented research (POR). This change has been spurred on by UNC's thriving General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) program and by the presence of a large cadre of experienced senior mentors who are also well-funded clinical investigators. As a result, junior faculty members at UNC have competed successfully for more than 4% of the K23 awards that have been funded by the NIH since the inception of this program three years ago. These K23s combined with five NCRR-supported CAP awards provide convincing evidence of the quality of the junior faculty members who are conducting POR. However, this remarkable success in career development is now seriously threatened by increasing clinical demands and by a state budget crisis that has produced significant reductions in allocations to the University. For these reasons, it has become every difficult for Department Chairs and Division Chiefs to assure protected research time to junior faculty members unless they have external support for these activities. This application, describes how this K12 award would address this need by providing the "bridge" funds needed by those young people who are committed to careers in POR. Also described is the formal systems that will employed to identify and support the most promising individuals for a period of up to (but no more than) three years. During this protected time, each Scholar will receive the requisite training, collect the essential preliminary data, and then compose and submit the best possible application for an individual career development award. The training program proposed here, which embraces the full spectrum POR research, including mechanisms of human disease, therapeutic interventions, clinical trials, and development of new technologies, contains new didactic elements fully integrated into existing and highly successful K30, BIRWCH (K12), and GCRC training programs. Each scholar will work closely with a Lead Mentor to develop and implement an individual research project. In addition, all Scholars will have at their disposal the consultative resources of the GCRC, including biostatistics, informatics, and the recently established Office of Research Subject Advocacy. If funded, this K12 award will allow the applicants to maintain their current momentum in POR career development as they seek to attain the ultimate goal of seeding the country with a new generation of academic scientists, all of whom are firmly committed to POR.