Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health

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ABSTRACT The Vanderbilt-Meharry BIRCWH Program seeks to increase the pool of well-prepared investigators dedicated to expanding knowledge about women's health via advances in sex and gender biology. Our scholars conduct research across five thematic areas of exceptional institutional strength emphasizing five methodologic approaches to actualize personalized prevention, diagnostics, and therapeutics for girls and women. Leveraging a tradition of research excellence, scholars have access to many ongoing cohorts taking a lifespan approach, existing interdisciplinary units in all of our thematic areas, and large-scale clinical and population- level data linked to DNA and biospecimens, including prominent consortia. This environment creates synergy for robust mechanistic and therapeutic research to deliver discoveries both inside and outside the lab. Our 36 former and current scholars conduct research as varied as immunologic and genetic aspects of lupus, gender differences in outcomes of intensive care unit care, sex differences in resilience to Alzheimer's, and role of sex hormones in T cell differentiation and cytokine expression in asthma onset and severity. Scholars are 81% women and 28% identify with minority race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disadvantaged status historically underrepresented in research. Nearly all remain in research. During training, scholars average 8 publications a year, and alumni have been awarded 107 extramural grants worth over $50 million total. BIRCWH Scholars are grounded in fundamentals of women's health and sex differences research, prepared to lead collaborative teams, trained to effectively deploy innovative interdisciplinary approaches to attack and solve problems, and committed to pursuing research that optimizes the health of all women. Scholars are selected by competitive review of applications from early career faculty. Training is tailored to the individual scholar guided by structured interdisciplinary mentorship and is overseen by a trio of Co-PIs who are all former BIRCWH Scholars. Program resources are further extended by myriad institutional resources that ensure our researchers thrive. Scholars form a mentoring panel, participate in weekly BIRCWH work-in-progress sessions and seminars, receive formal evaluation twice a year, attend twice-monthly career development seminar series with other K-awardees, and are regularly exposed to case studies on responsible conduct of rigorous and reproducible research. They have access to: 1) an array of cores; 2) biostatistics consults; 3) manuscript preparation groups; 4) technical editing of completed products; 5) studios with experts to vet scientific ideas, aims, and research designs; 6) intramural pilot funding; 7) grant writing support including grant workshops, a library of funded grants, and internal study sections; and 8) new expert consultations to design fully individualized training plans termed Pathways. We deploy evaluation tools to continuously enhance our program with oversight by an advisory committee and site visitors. Combined, this ensures we carefully support excellence and build diversity in the next generation of women's health researchers.