Mentoring Clinical Researchers at the Intersection of NeuroAIDS and Substance Abuse

 描述（由申请人提供）：Mariana Cherner博士，是加州圣地亚哥大学精神病学副教授，也是NIH资助的神经艾滋病研究者，已有15年以上的经验。这是一个K24中期职业研究者奖在以患者为导向的研究的建议，以提高博士Cherner的指导临床科学家的能力，并把他们纳入研究的神经艾滋病和药物滥用的交叉点。Cherner博士指导了30多名处于不同职业阶段的学员，从本科生到初级教师。她的学员中有一半以上来自代表性不足的背景，其中大多数是女性。在拟议的K24奖的支持下，Cherner博士将能够扩大她的指导工作，并特别关注吸引来自学术医学领域没有很好代表性的背景的学员。Cherner计划在她目前的研究领域提供指导，广泛（1）艾滋病毒背景下甲基苯丙胺相关脑功能障碍的个体差异，以及（2）神经心理学方法的跨文化应用，以检测艾滋病毒和药物滥用在不同人群中的影响。这项工作将得到她自己资助的赠款以及她在UCSD的HIV神经行为研究计划（HNRP）中参与的大型项目的支持，其中包括UCSD所有主要的神经导向HIV研究，如转化甲基苯丙胺艾滋病研究中心（TMARC），HIV神经行为研究中心（HNRC），一个T32补助金的跨学科神经艾滋病（TRAIN）成瘾研究培训，和R25神经艾滋病跨学科研究奖学金，她指导。这种高超的“团队科学”的研究环境，沿着从精神病学系和更大的UCSD校园的资源，提供了极好的机会，吸引高素质的学员，并提供丰富的培训经验，为早期职业生涯的病人为导向的研究人员。来自K24奖的支持将使Cherner博士能够减少行政和临床职责，将大部分精力集中在研究指导和推进她的研究计划上。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Mariana Cherner, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego and an NIH-funded neuroAIDS investigator for over 15 years. This is a proposal for a K24 Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research to increase Dr. Cherner's ability to mentor clinician scientists and bring them into the fold of research at the intersection of neuroAIDS and substance abuse. Dr. Cherner has mentored more than 30 trainees at various career stages, from undergraduates to junior faculty. Greater than half of her mentees have been from underrepresented backgrounds, and a majority are women. With support from the proposed K24 award, Dr. Cherner would be able to expand her mentoring efforts and maintain a special focus on attracting trainees from backgrounds that are not well-represented in academic medicine. During the proposed award, Dr. Cherner plans to provide mentoring in her current areas of research, broadly (1) individual differences in vulnerability to methamphetamine-related brain dysfunction in the context of HIV, and (2) cross-cultural applications of neuropsychological methods to detect effects of HIV and substance abuse in diverse populations. This work will be supported by her own funded grants as well as by her participation in large projects within the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (HNRP) at UCSD, which include all the major neuro-oriented HIV studies at UCSD such as the Translational Methamphetamine AIDS Research Center (TMARC), the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center (HNRC), a T32 grant for Training in Research on Addictions in Interdisciplinary NeuroAIDS (TRAIN), and the R25 Interdisciplinary Research Fellowship in NeuroAIDS, which she directs. This superb "team-science" research environment, along with resources from the Psychiatry Department and the larger UCSD campus, affords excellent opportunities to attract highly qualified trainees and provide rich training experiences for early career patient-oriented researcher. Support from the K24 award would enable Dr. Cherner to reduce administrative and clinical duties to focus the majority of her effort on research mentoring and furthering her research program.