This is a resubmission of a competitive renewal of a T32 Institutional Training grant, named The Stuart T. Hauser Research Training Program in Biological and Social Psychiatry. It is ending its 38th year of a very successful post-doctoral training program for MDs, PhDs, and MD/PhDs, with trainees at varying levels of experience, i.e., newly completed residency training or PhD degree to 7+ years of experience from initial training. Drs. Hauser and McCarley provided leadership for this program from its inception and Dr. Shenton, a former trainee of the program, joined as Associate Director in 1994. When Dr. Hauser passed away in July 2008, Dr. Shenton became the PI and Dr. McCarley remained as Co-Director. With Dr. McCarley's passing in 2017, Dr. Marek Kubicki became Co-Director. We plan to continue this intentionally broad based program, which fits well with NIMH's mission to ?transform our understanding of mental illnesses? and ?to pave the way for prevention, recovery, and cure.? The rationale for this program is quite clear ? to train the most diverse and outstanding young investigators, and to equip them with the tools and knowledge needed to succeed in developing their own research careers in biological and/or social psychiatry so as to understand, treat, and ultimately prevent and possibly cure mental illness. We also agree with NIMH's mission that to meet these goals we need to ?foster innovative thinking? and to ensure ?an array of novel scientific perspectives,? used ?to further discovery in the evolving science of brain, behavior, and experience.? The program is interdisciplinary (e.g., areas of neuroscience, development, neuroimaging, genetics), and has as its cornerstone a weekly 1.5- hour seminar that includes a 3-month grants module to demystify and to teach the grant process. Issues relevant to the ethical conduct of research are also discussed as are the development of skills needed for a successful career as a clinical researcher. Trainees also present their work, and outside speakers are invited to discuss their careers. A further goal is for trainees to work with outstanding preceptors in their chosen area to develop further their expertise, and to ensure that they receive the best training possible to compete in what has become a difficult arena to support individual initiated investigator research. There are 41 preceptors, across multiple research areas and sites, who help evaluate candidates and who serve as preceptors (13 new preceptors). Trainees devote two years with the goal that at the end of this time they will conduct their own independent research, or join established clinical research teams as junior colleagues. Over the past 5 years trainees have received 1 K23 award, 1 K01 award, 1 F32 award, 1 VA Career Award, 4 Livingston Awards, 1 R03, 3 NIH Loan Repayment Awards, and 3 NARSAD Awards, as well as other awards, thus attesting to the high productivity of trainees. Trainees fill out a needs assessment form upon entering the program and then fill in gaps in knowledge with relevant courses within Harvard University, including the Harvard Catalyst. We recruit underrepresented minorities and include underrepresented minorities among our preceptors.
PROGRESS Mental illness is a major health problem; The Stuart T. Hauser Research Training Program in Biological Psychiatry and Social Psychiatry provides research and mentor-mentee opportunities, as well as core and individualized curricula, that are critical for developing the next generation of scientists in biological, developmental, and translational psychiatry. This program, ending its 38th year, will train the most diverse and talented young investigators, and equip them with the tools and knowledge needed to succeed in developing their own research so that they can better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent and possibly cure mental illness. The relevance of the program is that we need to improve the health care of those with mental illnesses and this can only be done by investing in the next generation of clinical researchers who will make mental illness more tractable via novel discoveries that lead to improved treatment.
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