Since first becoming an Assistant Professor in Nephrology in 2006, I have been deeply committed to patient oriented research (POR) in nephrology, and to mentorship. This has led to considerable successes. I am PI on multiple NIH R01 awards and contracts, and am leading clinical trials in nephrology. In regards to mentorship, I am currently primary mentor to two K awardees, secondary mentor to an additional K awardee, and am also mentoring a cadre of nephrology MD and PhD post-doctoral fellows, medical residents, and pre- doctoral students. One prior mentee is leading her own R01 as PI, and several have transitioned to the Associate Professor level. My mentees have been successful garnering grant support and publishing high impact manuscripts as first author. However, with increasing demands on my time, and with the need to fund my professional effort, I am limited in my abilities to expand my mentorship activities. I have a wealth of talented potential trainees, and find great satisfaction mentoring. Similarly, by necessity, my funded research awards are built on my current skills and expertise. Yet, I am excited about new ideas that I believe can be transformative, but am ill equipped to obtain research awards and advance these ideas without additional training in the new areas of interest. My strong desire to spend more time mentoring, to expand my pool of mentees, and to obtain new research training has led me to propose this K24. Within it, my aims are to (1) to dedicate time to expand my mentorship capacities to promising junior investigators in patient oriented research in kidney disease, and (2) to obtain new research expertise in (a) cell free DNA technology, (b) approaches to FDA biomarker qualification, and (c) leadership and team management skills.
Over 11% of the US population has kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among them. There is a need for a new generation of patient oriented researchers working to address kidney and cardiovascular disease, but few experienced researchers dedicated to mentorship available in order to train them. As a successful mid-career investigator and dedicated mentor, I request support of my time to expand my mentorship activities for outstanding junior scientists and to expand my research expertise in new ways.
