The goal of the Research Development Core is to promote the development of junior faculty members into research scientists who investigate the causes, consequences, and treatment of health care problems of the elderly. In accord with the goals of the OAIC program, special emphasis is given to career development activities that enhance the abilities of junior faculty members to study the relationship between disease mechanisms and independence-enhancing interventions. The Core is directed by Dr. Richard A. Miller, the Geriatrics Center's Associate Director for Research; Dr. Jeffrey Halter serves as Co-Director. The Core has three principal components. (1) An annual Pilot/Feasibility Grant program will fund junior faculty research projects in aging, age-related disease, and therapeutic interventions. Four such grants will be awarded each year, at a level of approximately $25,000 each. (2) Two research retreats will be held each year, on topics selected to that each of the Center's thematic areas (Brain Disorders, Impaired Homeostasis, Health and Well-Being, and Impaired Mobility) is featured every second year. Each retreat will involve a 2-3 day program of scientific presentations, research development workshops, and career development sessions, and will bring to campus 2 senior geriatric investigators and 2-6 junior faculty members from other institutions to interact with Michigan junior and senior faculty members. U/M participants will include all currently funded, and many former recipients of Pilot/Feasibility Awards. These retreats will emphasize the interactions between basis research, clinical research, and intervention development studies in the geriatric age group. Junior faculty members also acquire familiarity with a broad range of scientific problems and methods by participation in the Institute of Gerontology's weekly seminar series and (for physicians) the weekly conference of the Division of Geriatric Medicine. (3) A mentorship program pairs each Pepper Center junior faculty scientist with a senior faculty member who can provide advice on matters of research design, core utilization, and preparation of seminars, manuscripts, and grant applications. The mentor panel includes the directors of each Research Development Core (Drs. Fries, Liang, Schultz and Miller), as well as other senior faculty scientists chosen for their training record and their expertise in specialized aspects of geriatrics research (Faulkner, D. Fink, Gilman, Halter and Weissert). The Research Development Core also provides junior faculty members with subsidized access to the Medical Center' Molecular and Cell Biology Core laboratories, provides modest support for junior faculty travel to meetings in geriatrics, and coordinates a formal program of """"""""pre-review"""""""" for nascent grant applications.
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