RESEARCH EDUCATION COMPONENT During our first funding cycle, the University of Kansas Alzheimer's Disease Center (KU ADC) established programs for students and early-career investigators that enhance collaboration and expose trainees to sound scientific methods. These resources and programs provide trainees with skills needed to pursue a research career in aging and dementia. In response to the RFA's call for a Research Education Component (REC, ?Core F?), we will formalize and expand our research training and define a new career development pipeline, the Kansas Dementia and Aging Research Training (KDART) program. The long-term goal of the KDART is to provide research training and professional networks that support and propel aspiring researchers through each level of career development. The KDART will leverage and extend ongoing educational and training opportunities at the University of Kansas Medical Center to increase the reach and impact of our training program. The KDART will provide a comprehensive training environment, research experiences, support, and opportunities appropriate to career stage. The KDART will facilitate engagement with KU ADC at each stage of career development, helping to match trainees with resources, collaborators, and educational opportunities. The immediate goal of the KDART is to directly address the need for clinical and translational researchers ready to push the field forward in the next 5 years. The AD and brain aging field must train a new generation of investigators who will accelerate aging and dementia research efforts. To address this need, we will create the Kansas Dementia Fellowships (KDF) program, which will constitute a formal KDART post-doctoral training program. The goal of the KDF is to deliver an immediate impact on the research landscape regionally and nationally by providing advanced research training to its early-career investigators. A national shortage of well-trained researchers with the ability to integrate clinical insights with advances in the basic sciences slows the development of clinical interventions. The KDART will play a critical role in supporting and expanding AD research training in the Midwest. Through the KDART, our ongoing programs and those proposed in the next cycle position us to train the next generation of AD researchers. REC funds will support and extend the existing research training environment by establishing an administrative structure for the KDART, and by supporting research fellowships (the KDF) that can have near-term impact on our regional research environment.
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