The Career Enhancement Core will continue and expand our current efforts to build the community of investigators with the knowledge, skills and experience to conduct high quality cutting edge tobacco regulatory science. The Core has three interrelated parts: the TCORS Fellowship, Developmental Pilot Projects, and a Researcher/Faculty Exchange Program. Each part is built on the foundation of UCSF's currently funded TCORS and the well-established fellowship program of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. Because the Career Enhancement Core uses existing infrastructure almost all funds will directly support researcher salaries, research, and collaborative activities. The Core will achieve three specific aims: (1) Enhance career development in tobacco regulatory science expertise among students, fellows, new and early stage investigators, and established investigators who are new to tobacco regulatory science; (2) Administer the selection of and supervise the implementation of Developmental Pilot Projects in tobacco regulatory science; and (3) Facilitate collaborative career enhancing networking opportunities through a researcher/faculty exchange program connecting UCSF TCORS investigators with investigators from other TCORS. The TCORS Fellowship provides salary support for two postdoctoral fellows with interest in conducting tobacco regulatory science, and offers them opportunities to pursue supervised research projects, a specialized curriculum that includes all the FDA Scientific Domains relevant to tobacco regulatory science (health effects, behavior, communications, marketing influences, toxicity, addiction, and impact analysis), pilot project funds, and travel funds for TCORS meetings and other conferences. The Developmental Pilot Projects support 2-3 studies of $50,000 each in tobacco regulatory science annually, and funds are available to any UCSF postdoctoral fellow or faculty member in order to encourage interest in tobacco regulatory science. The peer review process for these pilot studies utilizes the UCSF Research Allocation Program, which is a campus-wide program that coordinates intramural funding reviews modeled on NIH study sections. The Researcher/Faculty Exchange Program provides support for formal and informal opportunities for travel and presentations at other TCORS and other relevant career-building experiences (e.g., visits to FDA), and to host visitors from other TCORS to participate in Fellows' meetings or research retreats. We have established productive working relationships with investigators the other TCORS, we are active in several cross-TCORS working groups in measurement, training and communication, and our faculty serve on the advisory committees for several other TCORS. We will continue to contribute shared resources, didactics and curricula to all the other TCORS in order to continue developing the community of investigators in tobacco regulatory science.
