CHOP Pediatric Scholars Program

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The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) proposes to establish an NICHD-sponsored Child Health Research Career Development Award (CHRCDA) K12 program. Our goal is to increase the number and effectiveness of subspecialty pediatricians with a rigorous background and skills in molecular techniques by identifying and training promising pediatric faculty to become successful physician-scientists, and to encourage them to address questions of fundamental importance to health and disease in children. Candidates for our program will be CHOP faculty appointed from our subspecialty fellows and through national searches. Each candidate will identify a prospective mentor from a group of 29 mentors, 22 from the Department of Pediatrics, the other 7 from elsewhere at the University of Pennsylvania (U of P). CHOP CHRCDA mentors were chosen by the following criteria: rigorous science in areas germaine to children; a record of successful research interactions and mentoring; strong extramural funding; and programmatic balance. Pediatric Scholars will be supported for no less than two years to conduct research as outlined in their formal research applications. They will have ready access to a comprehensive Molecular Core and ample opportunities to exchange ideas in formal and informal settings with other senior and junior investigators. We view the CHRCDA as a natural successor to our CHRC, which was extremely successful in catalyzing the production of physician-scientists capable of conducting fundamental research. During the 10 years that we held the CHRC, we selected 39 MAPS Scholars from 11 pediatric subspecialties. Of these, 85% have remained in academics, 72% continue to spend more than 50% of their time in research, and 71% have succeeded in obtaining one or more individual NIH grants, including 16 RO1 or R29 awards. Our CHRCDA will build on this tradition and upon CHOP's strengths as a pediatric academic institution with an outstanding pool of subspecialty fellows, experienced mentors with cutting edge research programs, a well supported and resource- rich research environment, and a proven tradition of research trainin 9.