Commitment to mentorship, strong external review, solid Core laboratory support, a cohesive theme and selection of worthy candidates marked the initial 5 years of support for the COBRE in Cardiovascular Development and Disease at the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina. Our record of career advancement for 6 of 9 targeted faculty, 153 published journal articels, books and abstracts, and 121 presentations by COBRE participants documents our success. COBRE funding also directly contributed to 9 additional faculty recruitments, notably including one minority scientist. COBRE support from combined institutional funds for program development (in the form of seed grants) provided 7 additional junior faculty investigators with key resources. This renewal leverages the strengths of the original program to a more challenging goal - the building of competitive program grant applications within the scientific theme of cardiovascular developmental biology, which we define as (1) mechanisms of normal and abnormal development, (2) the developmental basis of adult cardiovascular diseases and (3) applied developmental biology (regenerative medicine). Over 11,000 sq.ft. of laboratory space are dedicated to our COBRE sponsored center Cardiovascular Developmental Biology Center (CDBC). We have identified four talented junior investigators to be the targeted faculty of this renewal application and describe plans to recruit a fifth. An endowed chair allocated to our COBRE center will make it possible to recruit an outstanding senior scientist to provide additional scientific leadership and programmatic development. Our renewal program continues to stress the successful strategies of the initial funding period and adds program elements to enhance productive collaboration between target faculty members, senior scientific investigators, Core laboratory directors, and clinicians (especially pediatric cardiology). The combination of cardiovascular developmental biology and regenerative medicine investigation supported at MUSC and in this COBRE is unique and inherently translational;we believe it will provide a model for other institutions. This proposal describes plans for building effective scientific teamwork for development of PPG and SCCOR applications that will sustain the CDBC beyond the P20 funding cycle while strengthening the cardiovascular developmental and regenerative medicine scientific community at our institution and nationally.
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