The primary goal of the proposed BIRCWH Program is to continue to provide Interdisciplinary Women's Health Research (IWHR) scholars with state-of-the-art multidisciplinary training in women's health research that will ensure that they successfully establish independent research careers in academic medicine. To achieve this goal, we have refined and adapted our already successful organizational structure to provide scholars with in-depth training in 4 focused and interacting areas of women's health: 1) drug abuse and its relationship to sex and gender differences, 2) cancer as it relates to women's health, 3) hormonal regulation across a woman's lifespan, and 4) oral health and its impact on cardiovascular and endocrine health and pregnancy outcomes. The 4 current focus areas were chosen as an extension of our previous research areas because research in these areas is of fundamental importance to improving the health of women. Also these 4 focus areas address the 4 overarching themes identified by NIH and ORWH as important for this proposal (interdisciplinary research, sex/gender determinants, lifespan, and health disparities/differences and diversity). We will establish an innovative Shared Resource Laboratory, called Advancing Research Through Support (ARTS), that will provide Scholars with skilled technical services that are unavailable elsewhere in the UK research environment. Finally, we will establish an innovative program whereby former BIRCWH Scholars ('graduates') will act as Coaches by serving as members of research teams and providing an extensive and interactive support network for the IWRH Scholars. A unique feature and an important strength of our BIRCWH Program is its multidisciplinary, cross departmental and interactive nature. This multidisciplinary structure allows us to address a broad range of issues related to public health including addictive behaviors, aging, cancer, diabetes, hormone action, obesity, oral health, and pregnancy. During the previous funding period, we used this interactive structure with considerable success. Therefore, we propose to expand the opportunities afforded to each IWHR Scholar for rich, concentrated, and multidisciplinary experiences with a primary mentor, a former BIRCWH Scholar (Coach), and many other faculty members that will enrich the IWHR Scholar's research experience and provide multiple role models to enhance the Scholar's career development.
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