CTSA Predoctoral T32 at University of Utah: Spheres of Translation Across the Research Spectrum (STARS) Training Program

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PROJECT SUMMARY This T32 predoctoral training program proposes to train 6 postdoctoral trainees annually, totaling 30 trainees across 5 years. Each trainee will receive funding for two years. We will create a cadre of scholars with commanding knowledge and experiences across all three translational spheres as well as a deep commitment to transdisciplinary team science. This T32 will provide the necessary early-career training to produce a diverse pool of highly trained scientists with the requisite skills to address the nation’s biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs. Our conceptual framework organizes the translational continuum into three spheres: Discovery, Demonstration, and Dissemination. Scholars undertake and become domain experts within one sphere and receive training in bridging domains and exposure across the spheres, emerging with a broad, invaluable perspective of how their research fits within the breadth of translational science and how discoveries move through the continuum. In addition to domain-specific training overseen by primary mentors, the T32 program includes training in: (1) core knowledge of translational science research; (2) the value of and skills needed in team science; (3) how equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) contribute to scientific excellence; (4) research ethics and reproducibility; (4) community engagement; (5) career and leadership development; (6) grant and manuscript writing; and (7) bridging domains and scientific and lay communication. We are equally committed to ensuring a diverse group of scholars in order to ensure the pipeline of scientists are as diverse as the subjects they research. However, recruiting diverse scholars is not enough to ensure an environment where diverse scholars can thrive. To create such a space, it is critical to teach to all trainees and mentors the history of racism in science and medicine and how to be an anti-racist scientist. Thus, all trainees and their primary mentors will receive this training. During their training T32 scholars will receive holistic mentoring and career guidance from not only their primary mentor, but also secondary, near-peer, and program leadership. In collaboration with mentors, we will develop a cadre of scholars who are experts in their domains, with a commanding knowledge of translational science, who have the ability to innovate and advance translation and who are skilled communicators, boundary crossers, and team-players with a deep commitment to transdisciplinary team science. Our overarching goal is to produce a new generation of scientists with strategic translational emphases whose breadth of knowledge and ability to communicate across boundaries will increase transdisciplinary cross-fertilization and accelerate healthcare advances.