Candidate's Career Goals: At the end of this award, the candidate plans to have developed the skills necessary to be an independent clinical investigator in the field of immunopathogenesis and autoimmunity. His long-term career goal is use the training acquired during this award period to remain in an academic setting, participating as an independent researcher in the creation of a new paradigm in autoimmune disease where susceptibility to disease is determined in the pre-clinical state, and early measures can be halt the onset or early progression of disease. Research Career Development Plan: During the period of this award, there will be two major components to the candidate's research training. The first will be the candidate's participation in formal education in clinical research through the Ph.D. Program in Clinical Science offered at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. The second will be the candidate's involvement in the NIH-funded project Studies of the Etiologies of Rheumatoid Arthritis (SERA), under the guidance of mentors V. Michael Holers and Jill Norris. Description of Research Project: During the period of this award, the candidate's involvement in research will focus on an arm of the SERA project evaluating the relationship between HLA alleles, environmental exposures, and the development of RA- related autoimmunity in a cohort of approximately 2700 healthy first-degree relatives of patients with RA. The long-term goals of both the candidate and the larger SERA project are to identify potential etiologic mechanisms for RA, as well as to develop a model for predicting the development of disease in healthy subjects, ultimately selecting subjects who would be candidates for preventive or very early therapeutic interventions.
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