Overall Career Development

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Career Development and Training Programs During the previous funding period the MRCE established three individual career development programs (the MRCE Clinical and Translational Research Fellowship Award, the MRCE Biosafety Fellowship Program, and the MRCE Biodefense Veterinary Fellowship), and two group training programs (the MRCE Biosafety Course and the MRCE Seminar Series). The Clinical and Translational Research Fellowship Program was designed to meet the needs of Region VII and the nation to increase the pool of physician-scientists performing high quality research on biodefense and emerging infectious diseases. The Biodefense Veterinary Medicine Training Program was designed to meet the needs of Region VII and the nation for veterinarian scientists that can perform high quality research on select agents, veterinarians that can lead comparative medicine programs that deal with select agents, and veterinarians that can train other veterinarians to safely work with class A-C agents. The MRCE Biosafety Fellowship Program was a post-doctoral fellowship in Biosafety created to provide the national biodefense research effort with a cadre of individuals capable of establishing and supervising biosafety programs in academia, industry, and government. It was associated with the Biosafety Course, which provided both didactic and hands-on training in handling select agents at the BSL3 containment level. Finally, the MRCE Seminar Series supported research talks from leading scientists from outside Region VII on cutting edge science in biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research. As part of the competitive renewal process, the Steering Committee reviewed all of the MRCE career development and training programs, other training opportunities within the region, and regional and national manpower needs. We reached the following conclusions: ¿ The three MRCE career development programs had generally been successful in meeting their major goals (see section ), but there was a concern that the duration of support (1 year) was not adequate to truly facilitate career development for either the Clinical and Translational Research Fellowship Program or the Veterinary Medicine Training Program. ¿ In the current funding environment it is increasingly difficult for senior post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty interested in biodefense or emerging infectious diseases research to obtain the grant support and mentorship needed to help them become independent investigators. ¿ There remains a shortage of physicians opting to train for clinical or translational research in biodefense and emerging infectious diseases. We need to develop programs to recruit these individuals into the field. ¿ ¿ If we are to expand the pipeline of scientists interested in biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research, we need to explore the efficacy of targeting individuals at earlier levels in their careers. Given the current funding environment, stipend support might be an attractive mechanism to introduce selected graduate students to research in biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research. Such a program would also benefit their mentors, and expand the pool of MRCE supported investigators. ¿ One of the unique aspects of Region VII is the presence of three strong schools of Veterinary Medicine (e.g. University of Missouri, Kansas State University, Iowa State University). There remains a critical need to train more DVMs for the effort in biodefense. They will play key roles in direct research on select agents, in developing large and small animal models of disease, and in supervising facilities where animals are used for biodefense research. This will become an even greater need with the new Regional (RBL) and National (NBL) Biocontainment Laboratory programs. ¿ There is an ongoing need to teach investigators, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, technicians, and any other laboratory personnel how to safely work with select agents, especially those that require BSL2 and BSL3 containment. We anticipate a continued increase in individuals applying to work with these agents, and the lack of knowledge about the regulatory and safety issues involved in this work can be a significant barrier to scientists. The MRCE provides a unique opportunity to develop a formal, consistent training program for our region. ¿ As the RBL and NBL facilities come on line, there will be an increasing regional and national demand for individuals capable of establishing and supervising biosafety programs. This is absolutely key to increasing the number of institutions involved in the biodefense research effort. We should continue our program to "train the trainers" to meet this need. ¿ There remains a need for increased education about biodefense and emerging infectious diseases research within our region. A seminar series that features cutting edge research from the leaders in this field provides educational benefits, can spur collaborations, and provides a forum to promote MRCE programs and resources. Based on this assessment, the MRCE proposes to continue its three individual career development programs, and two group career development activities. We describe each of these projects in detail in the subsequent sections. Because we made significant modifications to the Clinical and Translational Research Fellowship program, increasing the duration of support to 3 years, and opening the eligibility requirements to include junior faculty at the instructor or early assistant professor stage, we now call it the MRCE Career Development Award in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research.