One of the ongoing goals of the University of Kansas medical Center (KUMC) is to foster the development of biomedical research. The primary objective of this application -- to create a faculty research development program that will make junior clinical faculty members more competitive for NIH grant support -- is fully concordant with this institutional goal. The rationale for developing the program is that clinician-researchers are key to the development of multidisciplinary biomedical research teams that KUMC needs to be maximally competitive for NIH funding. We will accomplish the application's objectives by accomplishing two specific aims; (1) enhance the independent research skills of competitively selected members of the junior clinical faculty through an intensive program of mentoring in research by senior, NIH-funded scientists. Mentors have been chosen, not only to have outstanding research capabilities, but also as investigators who are committed to the development of independent clinician-researchers. Inflammation-related research is emphasized in order to add clinical researchers to the critical mass of outstanding basic scientists at KUMC who are already working in the area. Focusing on this area also ensures that the inflammation Group, a cooperative coalition at KUMC of more than 40 successful investigators with research and clinical interests in inflammation and autoimmunity, can be included in the developmental program. For example, the internal Advisory Committee will come from this organization. The research projects of the four clinician-researchers, which are designed to provide strong preliminary data for use in an NIH grant application, include: Endotoxin-Induced Inflammatory Mediators in Septic Shock; Effect of Smoking on Mechanisms of Cytokine Production; HER- 2/neu, TNF-alpha, and Drug Resistance in Ovarian Carcinoma; and Role of Inflammatory Mediators in Blastocyst Implantation.
Aim (2) will extend the developmental program by emphasizing networking of the junior clinician- researchers with senior scientists who are external to KUMC, as well as buy extending mentoring to ancillary research skills, such as writing and speaking. The means used to accomplish aim 2 will be conceptual/collaborative work-sessions organized with prominent external advisors appointed for each clinician-researcher, attendance of each clinician-researcher at two national/international research meetings annually; and a period spent each year in an external senior scientist's laboratory learning new research skills and approaches. Grant- and manuscript-writing skills, as well as spoken presentations, will be critiqued extensively. At the conclusion of the proposed three year program, it is our expectation that each of the program's four clinician- researchers will either be funded by NIH, or will have a competitive NIH grant application pending. We additionally expect that this prototype program will become the way that KUMC proactively approaches the development of its clinician-researchers in the future. Given these expectations, it is highly probable that tahe proposed IDeA program will have a profound and lasting impact on our institutions's research environment.
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