Beyond the Professoriate: Transforming Pathways for Biomedical Research Careers

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposal represents a collaboration between two outstanding research universities in Atlanta: Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). The long-term goal of the Atlanta BEST Program is to better prepare pre-doctoral and postdoctoral scientists for the breadth of possible careers in the biomedical research workforce, and to establish a network, share, evaluate, and disseminate widely best practices within the training community. The Program will establish programmatic alternatives for adapting pre-doctoral and postdoctoral training to meet 21st century scientific workforce needs by engaging in a transformation of the culture of training - in both a top-down and bottom-up approach - by creating new opportunities for both the trainees and the training/mentoring faculty. For the trainees, we will admit one cohort of 50 trainees per year (both pre-doctoral and postdoctoral, half from Emory and half from Georgia Tech). Each trainee will be appointed to the program for two years, although they and all other trainees are encouraged to be involved throughout their training. Faculty activities will initially target the Principal Investigators/advisors of those trainees, plus leaders of all of the biomedical research-based graduate programs from the two universities and other members of the training faculty who are supportive of this change of culture in the career development of biomedical researchers. Taking advantage of the wide variety of activities in the Atlanta biomedical research community at institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and members of the pharmaceutical industry, we will establish, implement, and assess innovative approaches and activities to broaden and compliment traditional research training in the biomedical sciences, in the following three Aims: Aim 1: To expose trainees to a broad variety of career pathways beyond academia. Aim 2: To provide trainees deep immersion into a specific career pathway beyond academia. Aim 3: To better equip faculty at Emory and Georgia Tech to train graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for the 21st century workforce. The Atlanta BEST Program will leverage existing institutional resources from Emory and Georgia Tech to broaden and enrich training experiences for predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees, and their faculty mentors, and will develop meaningful opportunities targeting various career pathways outside of academia including a variety of internships with local institutions and agencies. The lessons learned from this effort will be used identify best practices for training of the biomedical research workforce, and will be disseminated broadly via publication, discussion at a local symposium of Atlanta-area research institutions, presentations by faculty and trainees in educational sessions of professional meetings, and via other avenues.