PRIDE Summer Institute in Cardiovascular Disease Comorbidities, Genetics and Epidemiology (CVD-CGE)

Rao, Dabeeru; Davila-Roman, Victor

Abstract

. PRIDE application from Washington University in response to RFA-HL-19-002 proposes to build upon our current successful Summer Institute (SI) program and to significantly enhance it based on our experiences with and lessons learned from our SIPID/PRIDE programs. The overarching goal of our enhanced program is to provide creative and highly relevant educational activities with primary focus on research experiences and mentoring activities for enhancing diversity of the biomedical research workforce. We will accomplish this goal by recruiting junior faculty who are traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce, including: A) individuals from racial/ethnic groups shown to be nationally underrepresented in health-related sciences; B) individuals with physical disabilities; C) individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds; and (D) Women. Our WU SIPID/PRIDE programs (9 cohorts, 47 mentees over 12 years) have been extremely successful: our mentees had not received any NIH ?R? grants before they entered the WU SIPID/PRIDE program, but after the program they received 9 ?R? grants including 7 R01's (total number of all grants increased by 73% during/after training). The total number of publications during/after SIPID/PRIDE has been 784 peer-reviewed articles, an impressive 443% increase compared to before the program. Through the proposed activities listed below, our mentees will be trained to develop independent research programs in areas relevant to Heart, Lung, Blood, and Sleep (HLBS) disorders. Based on feedback from current and former trainees, faculty and mentors, we propose a significantly enhanced PRIDE program. Highlights of the WU PRIDE renewal application include: A) a new focus on highly-relevant CVD comorbidities and epidemiology didactic lectures. Current in-depth focus on Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics will continue, with educational material available on web (e-learning); B) continued and increased emphasis on effective mentoring and daily brainstorming of mentees' research projects; C) intense writing skills development, with particular focus on writing scientific manuscripts; D) development of competitive grant applications for the NEW ?Small Research Project (SRP)? program; E) recruiting 8 Mentees each of the first 4 years (increased from 3 years); F) 2-week long 1st and 2nd SI (decreased from 3 weeks); G) year-long mentoring that includes a 3-day mid-year meeting and 3-day annual meeting in Bethesda; H) 2-week long 2nd SI, with 3-day overlap between SI groups to facilitate networking and peer-mentoring; I) 2-year follow-up of each SI cohort to document progress in areas relevant to HLBS disorders, grant and manuscript writing and academic advancement (unchanged). Junior faculty, transitioning post-doctoral fellows and scientists with disabilities who are in early stages of their careers and with a declared research focus in HLBS disorders will be recruited. Effectiveness of the program will be assessed by mentees' success in securing independent grant support, scientific publications and academic promotions.

Public Health Relevance

Training and mentoring a diverse biomedical research workforce using state-of-the-art approaches to research in cardiovascular disease comorbidities, genetics and epidemiology is of considerable public health importance. A highly desirable added benefit is that the trained scientists are more likely to succeed in their research efforts to deal with health disparities among racial and ethnic groups.