The Scholar will spend at least 75 percent of his/her effort in sickle cell anemia-related research under the leadership of Dr. Luban, an established clinical investigator who also directs faculty training and mentorship at CNMC. Dr. Luban in conjunction with the physicians and scientist of WACSCC will develop a carefully planned, individualized research training program designed to ensure that the Scholar becomes an independent physician and/or biomedical researcher focused on critical translational and clinical questions related to sickle cell disease. An individualized career development plan (ICDP) (Appendix A) will be developed for the Sickle Cell Scholar and will encompass three major components: core curriculum, laboratory training and translational applications in the clinical setting. The first component is formal course work including a variety of disciplines: statistics, epidemiology, clinical trial design, regulatory aspects of clinical investigation, research ethics, scientific tools of clinical investigation, analytical techniques in clinical investigation, and principles and techniques of biochemistry, molecular biology and molecular genetics. These courses will be provided through the HU (RR010284) and CNMC (RR020359) Clinical Research Centers and the HU Research Scientist Program (R25HL003679) augmented by our joint K30 and associated T32 and K12 programs and by course work at HUSM and CNMC, local universities and through selected programs at NIH The second component provides a highly structured laboratory training program that is designed to provide practical training in biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics and analytic techniques, and in the analysis of clinical and laboratory data that results from bench investigations and clinical investigation implemented at the WACSCC collaborative laboratories and GCRCs. Physician scientists and epidemiologic researchers with interests in health care disparities and care delivery will engage in programs designed to learn methodological approaches to data- based investigations and quantitative research. The third component consists of developing and conducting a clinical project in sickle cell disease. The scholar will design, implement and participate in the conduct of a mentored clinical research project. This part of Scholar's training will ensure that he/she develops the training needed to conduct multidisciplinary clinical research, recognize the difficulties in such studies and develop tools to ensure future success as a clinical researcher or collaborative biomedical researcher. The ultimate goal of the Sickle Cell Scholar program is to inspire young and/or new investigators to devote their career to innovative and productive research that will lead to decreasing the disease burden and stigmata of this disease.
