Massachusetts Alzheimer?s Disease Research Center: Research Education Component The Research Education Component (REC) of the Massachusetts Alzheimer?s Disease Research Center (MADRC) leads the Center?s efforts to develop junior investigators into future leaders in research on Alzheimer?s disease and Alzheimer?s disease-related disorders (AD/ADRD). Research education has long been a priority of the MADRC, and we are pleased to expand our efforts into a formal component. We build on extensive experience as investigators and educators to foster the career development of junior investigators, to develop inter-institutional programs to share expertise more broadly, and to help trainees learn the skills that will contribute to our overall strategic goals of understanding heterogeneity and accelerating toward a cure. We follow the same organizing principles as the MADRC as a whole. Under the heading of Marshal resources for the core tasks of our component, a formal program to educate a cadre of trainees in cutting edge cross-disciplinary research on AD/ADRD recognition, evaluation, care, mechanism, prevention, and treatment, we plan to: Recruit and select a diverse cohort of trainees (Aim 1) and provide cross disciplinary training and mentorship (Aim 2). Under Develop new strategies to achieve progress in the field, we plan to provide intensive cutting edge clinical (Aim 3) and basic (Aim 4) research training rotations to our own trainees and the broader scientific community. Under Build the future to move toward new training approaches and the diverse workforce of the future, we plan to Develop cross-institutional partnerships to facilitate research training (Aim 5) and to participate in pipeline programs to draw under- represented groups into AD/ADRD research (Aim 6). We will recruit a group of five fellows who will be designated MADRC fellows for 1-2 years, and provide intensive mentoring and a small stipend for training expenses to attend meetings or exchanges with other ADRCs. We will recruit the fellows from a scientifically and demographically diverse background, including both clinical and basic scientists. We will develop?for the fellows and other local trainees-- a broad multidisciplinary training program and specialized rotations that will also be available to those from other institutions and other ADRCs. The program is organized to take advantage of the expertise and programs of the MADRC Cores and our large cadre of basic scientists to broaden the training of our clinician scientists, and to meet the needs of basic science trainees.
