This is a renewal K12 application for the Paul Calabresi Career Development Award for Clinical Oncology to continue a training program for clinical translational research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Over the first funding period of our K12 program we have established and executed a uniquely universal training program which extends to all MSK departments engaged in cancer research. The program solicits applications from senior fellows moving into junior faculty positions and junior faculty within the first 3 years of their appointments at MSK as well as similarly qualified candidates from other regional training programs recruited through aggressive advertisement and solicitation of program directors. During the initial funding period we restricted eligibility to candidates with an MD or DO degree alone. However, based on recommendations from our K12 external advisory committee (EAC), in this renewal application we have expanded eligibility to further include candidates holding combined MD/PhD and DO/PhD degrees. This program provides 3 years of junior faculty funding to selected scholars, and aims to help scholars transition into becoming independent clinical and translational investigators. Applications for this program will be reviewed by experts in the field both from within and outside of MSK. Reviewed applications are further evaluated by the K12 internal advisory committee (AC) which will select the 3-4 best applicants annually. Additional matching institutional funding has allowed and will continue to allow the program to support a maximum of 4 new scholars annually with up to 12 scholars funded at any given time during the funding period. Applications from scholars selected by the advisory committee will subsequently be evaluated by an established K12 educational committee (EC) who will design a personalized curriculum for each selected candidate. This curriculum will include a pre-established core curriculum requisite for all scholars with additional elective courses derived from available courses offered by the Louis V. Gerstner Graduate School of Biomedical Science. Significantly, over the first K12 funding period we have successfully established a Master's program in Clinical and Translational Cancer Research within the graduate school. All scholars will have the option to obtain sufficient credits through additional elective courses to be awarded this degree. Through written questionnaires K12 scholars will be asked to review the program and provide a progress report annually. In order to further assess the progress and function of the K12 program, scholars will provide written evaluations of their mentors as will mentors provide written evaluations of the scholar's progression on a biannual basis. Collectively these written evaluations will be utilized by the K12 program to assess the scholar's progress, the mentor's fitness, and the overall performance of the program. The program and scholar progress will be evaluated biannually by the K12 AC as well as the EAC which will include for the EAC one onsite visit during the annual K12 research symposium.
This is a renewal application requesting further funding for our recently established Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) K12 training program. Through initial K12 funding we have successfully established a robust MSK K12 program for highly selected and motivated candidates from multiple relevant clinical departments at our center as well as other regional cancer training programs. Promised institutional matching funds has allowed and will continue to allow the center to double the number of trained clinical investigators, making the K12 Career Development Award a premier and highly ambitious training program at MSK and perhaps serve as a template of similar high output translational clinical investigator training programs at other academic centers.
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