CDU-CRECD Mentored Postdoctoral Training in Translational Research and Biomedical Informatics Program

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT The proposed CDU-CRECD Mentored Postdoctoral Training in Translational Research and Biomedical Informatics Program at Charles R. Drew University (CDU) is a mentored clinical research and career development program designed to develop a diverse cadre of clinical and translational investigators who conduct innovative research on the underlying causes of diseases that disproportionately impact minority populations in the United States (e.g., cancer, drug use and addiction, and mental health/psychiatric disorders), and to foster and facilitate professional development activities in clinical and translational sciences. Over the proposed 5-year program period, the CDU-CRECD Program will accept a total of 12 minority postdoctoral trainees at the junior faculty level at CDU. Phase I is comprised of two years of structured mentoring and support for earning a Master of Public Health (MPH) in Urban Health Disparities with a dual focus on the fields of Biomedical Informatics and Community Participatory Clinical Translational Research. Phase II is comprised of a clinical/translational research project to continue working toward establishing their own independent research program as clinical research scientists leading to applications for individual mentored career development (K) or research grant (R series) awards. The CRECD Program will be embedded within the existing, extensive clinical research and training infrastructure at CDU, and thus will mutually leverage resources with other CDU research education and career development programs so as to achieve maximal cross-program synergies as well as efficiencies from utilizing already-in-place education and training curricula and related resources germane to the CRECD agenda. The CRECD Program will also carve out a unique niche of training and career development opportunities within the broader CDU science- generating “critical mass” by (1) focusing exclusively on urban health disparities and mastery of biomedical informatics and community-partnered participatory methods in the research and research training agenda and (2) providing to each trainee an intensive and community-immersive mentoring configuration that includes CDU faculty from both the conventional Academic Career track and the Community Faculty track. This intensive mentoring innovation directly emerges from, and formalizes and systematizes into a signature trainee mentoring configuration, a long and fruitful history of community-engaged research, training, and educational curricula at CDU. As an integrated research training and career development package, this approach is designed to bring social determinants of health to the forefront of molecular and clinical research. Ultimately, the goal is to increase the impact of community-academic partnered research through comprehensive dissemination of research findings so as to encourage and facilitate implementation of evidence-based treatment and prevention practices within health care organizations and the communities most in need of reliable access to high-quality care.