Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health

描述（由申请人提供）：范德比尔特BIRCWH学者项目的目标是增加有充分准备的研究人员的数量，致力于提高妇女健康知识。我们的科学重点是将妇女健康和性别/性别差异的研究整合到整个科学领域的蓬勃发展的研究项目中，以便为女孩和妇女实现个性化的预防、诊断和治疗。我们正在建立卓越的研究传统，包括正在进行的有75000多名参与者的上海妇女健康研究，一个有7190名妇女的前瞻性社区妊娠队列，与超过132000名患者的临床数据相关的DNA样本，大型组织和生物标志物库，20年的医疗补助数据与记录链接，以及许多其他大型项目在实验室内外取得基础发现的例子。我们的16位前任和现任学者在内容领域进行研究，包括狼疮的免疫学方面，ICU护理结果的性别差异，不良妊娠结果的种族差异的遗传基础，妊娠期间鸦片类药物暴露的人群水平模式，以及铁平衡对HIV疾病轨迹的影响。校友们平均发表了17篇论文，迄今为止已经获得了超过900万美元的校外研究支持。BIRCWH的学者以妇女健康和性别差异研究的基础为基础，准备领导独立和合作的研究项目，训练有效地部署创新的跨学科方法来攻击和解决问题，并致力于追求使妇女个性化护理更接近现实的研究。学者是通过对早期职业教师申请的竞争性审查来选择的。在结构化的跨学科指导下，培训是为个人调查员量身定制的，并由PI监督。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the Vanderbilt BIRCWH Scholars Program is to increase the pool of well-prepared investigators dedicated to advancing knowledge about women's health. Our scientific focus is to integrate the study of women's health and sex/gender differences into thriving research programs across the scientific spectrum, in order to actualize personalized prevention, diagnostics, and therapeutics for girls and women. We are building on a tradition of research excellence that includes the ongoing Shanghai Women's Health Study with 75,000+ participants, a prospective community-based pregnancy cohort of 7,190 women, DNA samples linked with clinical data for more than 132,000 patients, large tissue and biomarker banks, two decades of Medicaid data with record linkage, and numerous other examples of large scale programs making fundamental discoveries inside and outside the lab. Our 16 former and current scholars conduct research in content areas as diverse as immunologic aspects of lupus, gender differences in outcomes of ICU care, genetic underpinnings of racial disparities in adverse pregnancy outcomes, population-level patterns of exposure to opiates in pregnancy, and influence of iron balance on HIV disease trajectory. Alumni leave the program with an average of 17 total publications and to date have been awarded more than $9 million in extramural research support. BIRCWH Scholars are grounded in the fundamentals of women's health and sex differences research, prepared to lead independent and collaborative research programs, trained to effectively deploy innovative interdisciplinary approaches to attack and solve problems, and committed to pursuing research that brings individualized care for women closer to reality. Scholars are selected by competitive review of applications from among early career faculty. Training is tailored to the individual investigator, in the context of structured interdisciplinary mentorship, and is overseen by the PI, Program Director and Assistant Program Director (each a former BIRCWH Scholar). BIRCWH program resources are further enhanced by myriad institutional resources that ensure our researchers thrive. Scholars form a mentoring panel, participate in regular BIRCWH work-in- progress presentations and seminars, receive formal evaluation each year, attend twice-monthly career development seminar series with other K-awardees, and are regularly exposed to case studies on responsible conduct of research. They have access to: 1) an array of core labs and resources; 2) biostatistics consultations; 3) manuscript preparation work groups; 4) technical editing of completed products; 5) studios with experts to vet scientific ideas, research designs, and aims; 6) robust intramural pilot and feasibility funding; and 7) grant writing support includin grant workshops, a funded grant library, and mock study sections. Tools are in place to evaluate both mentees and mentors and to continuously enhance our program. Further oversight is provided by an Advisory Committee and biennial external reviews. Combined these efforts assure we carefully foster excellence in the next generation of women's health researchers. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: High impact discoveries often grow from the confluence of sophisticated methods, awareness of the implications of findings across fields, the energy and creativity sparked by collaborations, and emphasis on pursuing cross-cutting themes. We propose an interdisciplinary career development program to increase the pool of well-prepared investigators focused on advancing knowledge about women's health that is anchored in the theme of investigating sex/gender differences in the mechanisms, treatment, outcomes, and prevention of disease.