Academic Training in Therapeutic Advancement for Child Health (ATTACH)

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While tremendous advances in pharmacotherapy for adults have been achieved in recent years, expanding the benefits of these new therapies to infants and children remains a significant challenge. Important developmental changes in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, disease presentation and progression all impede direct translation of adult therapeutics into pediatrics. The discipline of pediatric clinical pharmacology provides necessary training in developmental physiology to leverage existing knowledge and guide rational therapeutics for infants and children. However, the current pool of pharmacologists and pediatric sub-specialists with formal training in clinical pharmacology is both small and aging. Additional pediatric clinician-scientists with training in clinical pharmacology are urgently needed to ensure that therapies are optimized for infants and children. In 2015, under the leadership of Edmund Capparelli, PharmD (expert in pediatric pharmacokinetic (PK) modeling) and Adriana Tremoulet, MD, MAS (expert in pediatric clinical trials), training in pediatric clinical pharmacology at UC San Diego was formalized as a NICHD-supported T32 Training Program. We are proud of this first iteration of a formal program to provide cutting-edge research training in pediatric clinical pharmacology. We now propose a renewal of our T32 pediatric clinical pharmacology training program, entitled “Academic Training in Therapeutic Advancement for Child Health” (ATTACH). In this renewal, we proudly seek to (1) modernize our program with new program leadership, (2) recruit more world-renowned faculty to teach our fellows state-of-the-art technologies, (3) launch a systematic tool to assess performance of our program and assist in program improvement, (4) emphasize trainee and faculty mentor training, and (5) enhance recruitment methods to attract a more diverse pool of applicants and trainees to stimulate diversity in the workforce. Our key objectives of the first cycle of our training program will remain the same: (1) To increase the number Pediatric clinical pharmacologists and Clinician-Scientists engaged in clinical pharmacology research as applied to child health; (2) to attract outstanding young pediatric clinicians to UCSD and to expand their translational capacity through clinical pharmacology methods; (3) to facilitate career development of ATTACH trainees under the guidance of world class, established investigator-faculty mentors; and (4) to cultivate the early careers of women and minority investigators in pediatric therapeutics. With our impressive group of mentors with outstanding training track records, UCSD ATTACH Fellows will be poised to be tomorrow's leaders in pediatric clinical pharmacology.