Forging a road to personalized medicine in interstitial lung diseases

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The two main goals of this award are to increase my ability to serve as an effective mentor while also providing training that will allow young investigators to successfully compete for a K23 award and subsequent independent funding. A diverse platform of educational activities, ongoing research, and the potential for future studies are available to aid in the training of pulmonary physicians in patient oriented research (POR). Throughout this award I will participate in ongoing educational activities. I will improve my understanding of the basic study of pulmonary diseases through attending a weekly basic science research conference. I will take statistical courses to expand my knowledge related to analyzing longitudinal and clustered data, high throughput molecular, genetic, and epigenetic data, and advanced concepts in clinical trials and survival analysis. I will continue my training i the responsible conduct of research through institutional review board sponsored courses as well as courses from the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research/Clinical & Translational Science Award (MICHR/CTSA). The basic mentoring plan for trainees includes an individualized research project in POR, scheduled mentor meetings, close collaboration with statisticians, formal educational activities targeting statistics & the responsible conduct of research, and scheduled formal feedback from a mentoring team. The UM Multidisciplinary Training Grant (T32 HL07749-18) and close collaboration with MICHR/CTSA provides funding for additional years of post-fellowship training and a Masters in Biostatistics & Clinical Study Design. A diverse portfolio of currently funded research opportunities exists for future trainees in POR. These projects offer a combination of already established databases for immediate use, raw data that can be maneuvered into databases and the ability to prospectively collect new data including patient specimens. Funded research projects are evaluating the use of computer aided image analysis software for use in clinical trials for patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, evaluation of potential biomarkers to predict the future course of patients with IPF, participation in the IPF clinical research network and the Lung Tissue Research Consortium. This application also proposes two new research projects. The first project determines the ability of high resolution computed tomography features to predict response to therapy with sildenafil for patients with advanced idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. This study utilizes data that are available through the IPFnet. A second project will create a database and also study human samples to improve our understanding of the diagnosis, predictors of outcome, and pathobiology of hypersensitivity pneumonia.