Mayo Clinic has a sustained and rich tradition of educating postdoctoral fellows. In October 2008, there were 152 MD (or equivalent) and 191 PhD fellows at Mayo Clinic Rochester. Currently, the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology has 24 fellows in the clinical training program, 6 fellows on the NIH Gl training grant, 26 postdoctoral research fellows, and 7 receiving K award funds. The Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division is committed to pulling promising fellows into digestive disease research and supporting their research initiatives and has demonstrated this commitment by providing seed money to attract the best Pilot/Feasibility projects for this application. As an incentive to apply for Pilot/Feasibility projects, the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division provided funds ($100,000) to match the first Pilot/ projects submitted with this application. The Center Pilot/Feasibility program is vital for helping us attract new investigators to digestive disease research. The Pilot/Feasibility program is designed to provide funds to support new investigators just beginning their careers in digestive diseases research or to support innovative research proposals from experienced investigators who plan to change their area of research. The goal of the program is to provide investigators with sufficient funds to obtain preliminary data that can be used to support applications for research grants from external agencies, especially NIH ROl grant submissions. This, in turn, will help to sustain and expand the Center research base. The Pilot/Feasibility program will fund up to four outstanding proposals each year for a total of $100,000 per year. In addition to research funding, Pilot/Feasibility awardees will be supported in other ways, such as being notified of CTSA career development initiatives and invited to participate in CTSA sponsored research workshop programs. Additionally, Pilot/Feasibility awardees will be eligible to compete for a Young Investigator Award funded by the institution that will provide one investigator with a second year of funding of $50,000. A detailed and rigorous peer review process has been developed to select studies of the highest quality. Built in this process is a mechanism to provide detailed constructive criticism to all eligible applicants, including the unfunded ones. The following sections detail the eligibility requirements, the mechanisms used to announce program funds, the application process and mechanisms for scientific review, and the mechanisms for program oversight and review.
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