We propose our second generation institutional translational KL2 program at the University of Massachusetts Worcester Campus (UMW) that consists of the UMass Medical School (UMMS), the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS), and the Graduate School of Nursing (GSN). This program will build upon the transformative KL2 program that has produced 9 scholars with three graduates who together, have had an outstanding impact on our campus and patient care. This program will encompass the full spectrum of translational research from first-in-man studies to implementation science and global health with additional continuous feedback to our basic science colleagues. Working across the University of Massachusetts (UMass) system, we will leverage applied science, engineering, and manufacturing resources to foster a collective institutional culture of creativity and collaboration driving scientific inquiry across disciplinary boundaries. The nature of this proposal is transdisciplinary, a term we have adopted to describe a working environment that expands beyond discipline-based concepts, theories, and methods as a means to address a common research topic and promote team science. In this program, we aim to: 1. Promote a research career development program across basic, clinical, and population health disciplines geared towards translating research into effective clinical practice and policy, as well as generating new questions spanning the entire spectrum of research. 2. Recruit promising scholars resulting in a diverse scholar pool with respect to sociodemographic characteristics, clinical background, and disciplinary perspective. 3. Provide scholars with the individual mentoring, academic career development, and technical skills necessary to ensure their success as independent investigators as well as contributors to team science. 4. Provide an independence-targeted research experience within transdisciplinary teams that builds on the strengths of the current environment of linkages between UMass campuses, departments, centers, and institutes. In order to achieve these aims, each scholar will pursue a major research theme with guidance and direction from an experienced lead mentor and transdisciplinary mentorship team. Scholars will also pursue a degree or coursework to enhance their research potential, and undergo a novel high-impact journal internship that will position them to submit their results for publication in a practice-changing journal. Finally, scholars will produce an R01-level grant under the guidance of both their mentorship team and our newly created ?K to R Club? to position them for independence. Consistent with our transdisciplinary approach, our proposed program also includes mentor development that is built into our mentoring teams across the continuum of faculty levels and disciplinary perspectives. Thus, this program represents a UMass-wide effort for the next generation of our already transformative translational investigator career development program. Using these novel training paradigms and the plans laid out in this proposal, we will be able to meet the current and future needs of translational investigation in Central Massachusetts and beyond.
Here we propose our second generation program to develop new investigators in the type of scientific investigation needed to bring scientific observations into the clinic. This program is located at the University of Massachusetts Worcester (UMW) campus and involves our Medical School and the graduate schools of basic science and nursing. This program will encompass the full spectrum of human research from first-in-man studies to the improvement of global health. Working across the University of Massachusetts (UMass) system, we will use programs in applied science, engineering, and manufacturing to generate solutions for critical unmet patient care needs in both Central Massachusetts and the world.
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