This application is a competitive renewal of the Colorado Multidisciplinary Research Training Program in Respiratory Disease (CTP), currently in the 39th year. The program proposes to train 12 post-doctoral Trainees (MD and PhD) per year. The mission is to train exceptional MD and PhD scientists for leadership in investigative careers. The future of American medicine will be dependent on the comprehensive investigation of T1-T4 research [basic translation (T1) through implementation science (T4)] with the goal to the betterment of patient care and patient health. In order to position the future generation for this goal, our training program (CTP) is designed to enable Trainees to have a comprehensive, integrative, and formal career development experience with the goal of positioning them to become the next generation of leaders in Pulmonary and Critical Care research. The CTP stresses translational science, incorporating the newest scientific platforms and didactic training integrated with cell, animal model, and human tissue research with established clinical research programs. Formal graduate school training is available through the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI). There are 53 Faculty Mentors and 18 Emerging Mentors from 3 Schools and 6 Departments. The inclusion of 18 emerging mentors (EM) is to provide the continuum of mentorship and leadership development for the CTP. The Pulmonary Division at the University of Colorado is designed around selected thematic research firms. Within each of these research firms, specific disease teams have comprehensive, translational research programs. The four research firms include; 1) Lung Injury and Repair, with specific disease team focus on acute lung injury (ALI), and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF); 2) Pulmonary Vascular Diseases, including both adult and pediatric presentations of disease; 3) Airway Biology, with disease teams in asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis and lung carcinogenesis, and 4) Host Defense and Immunology with a focus on granulomatous lung diseases and infectious lung diseases. T1 - T4 methodologies transcend the research efforts of each Firm. The Firms organize thematic research seminars, and are empowered to provide pilot funding for disease-specific Teams. For a sustainable workforce, we will use a conceptual model of academic persistence as our theoretical framework. Between 2004-2014, 65 T32 Trainees completed their training, or are in process (53 MD, 4 MD/PhD, 8 PhD), and 82% remain in academic medicine or related fields. This group has been awarded 10 fellowship awards and 20 career development awards. Eight faculty have recently achieved K to R transition over the past 5 years. The Trainees are highly diverse, with 43% women and 15% persons from URM or underserved backgrounds. All of these factors enable the University of Colorado to be an ideal site for training future leaders in respiratory diseases.
Pulmonary diseases account for approximately four million deaths per year in the United States. There is an acute need to train dedicated scientists who will form the future workforce empowered to make discoveries which lead to the reduction in death and disability from pulmonary disease. The University of Colorado School of Medicine Multidisciplinary Research Training in Respiratory Disease provides state-of-the-art research training for M.D. and Ph.D. scientists in both laboratory-based and clinical studies, with the goal of training the next generation of leaders in the field of pulmonary disease research.
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