The Career Development Program of the Mayo Clinic Breast Cancer SPORE is committed to identifying and mentoring junior faculty with the greatest potential of developing independent programs in translational breast cancer research. This will be accomplished through a rigorous review process aimed at identifying the most talented and promising candidate followed by an intensive, rigorous and effective mentoring program. The mentoring program is based on the establishment and optimal functioning of a Multidisciplinary Mentoring Committee led by a senior investigator with the scientific expertise and commitment to developing the next generation of translational breast cancer researchers. The Multidisciplinary Mentoring Committee will be composed of the primary mentor and the complementary clinical and/or basic investigator necessary for a comprehensive mentoring program plus a statistician. It is viewed as crucial to the success of the awardee that the mentoring be ongoing and robust. This will be accomplished by close oversight by the Director of the Career Development Program of the mentoring process and progress of the awardee. The Director of the Career Development Program will report to the SPORE Director who in turn reports to the SPORE Executive Committee. This intensive oversight process was established because of the firm conviction of the SPORE Director that the development of independent investigators and translational breast cancer research is central to the SPORE mission. The explicit expectation is that the awardees will utilize the resources made available to them for the development of independent research programs and acquisition of independent funding in breast cancer research. We are requesting $50,000 per year to support this program. This will be supplemented by $50,000 of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center support. One award of $100,000 per year will be made, which can be used for salary, technician support, and supplies. One awardee will be supported per year and a given awardee can be supported for up to two years providing satisfactory progress is demonstrated. To date the Program has been successful in that the first two Career Development Program awardees have been highly productive and have successfully competed to become Project Co-Leaders in this competitive renewal application.
The Career Development Program is focused on identifying, supporting and mentoring the most highly qualified investigators in basic science, population science and clinical research who have the greatest potential to conduct meaningful translational research in breast cancer and develop independent research programs directed at reducing the burden and mortality from breast cancer.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 473 publications
