The Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI) research training program at the University of Washington has matured rapidly and successfully since its inception in 1999. UW offers a highly collaborative environment with a strong track record of interdisciplinary research initiatives, which has driven the culture and priorities of the UW BHI activities. At its core the UW program recognizes that a key characteristic of successful BHI researchers is the ability to play a leadership role in translating methods and models from the computing sciences, information sciences and behavioral sciences into tools and solutions for information related challenges and opportunities faced by care providers, patients, biomedical researchers, and public health providers. BHI researchers in this role develop new knowledge that advances the field of BHI. They can also advance knowledge in the underlying computing, information and behavioral science disciplines, as well as contributing to advancing our knowledge in the biomedical domain. The goal of the BHI program is therefore to train future research leaders in the field with translational skills and interdisciplinary expertise across the domains of bioinformatics, clinical informatics, and public health informatics. The UW training program consists of: a) a core curriculum of foundational concepts in the field that reach across the discipline, b) core domain courses (clinical, biological, and public health), c) methodology courses (research methods, pedagogy, and biostatistics), and d) individualized in depth electives in foundational and domain areas. UW received its initial NLM-supported training grant in 2002;since then the BHI program has admitted four cohorts of students, including 27 NLM funded trainees, and graduated its first PhD student along with 15 research-focused MS students. Although relatively young, the training program has evolved significantly;processes for recruitment, admissions, mentoring, and optimizing trainee progress have been refined, as has the core curriculum. To maintain this success UW proposes to continue the NLM training program, seeking funding to support 18 trainees each year over the 2007-2012 cycle. This would permit recruitment of 4-5 new predoctoral trainees and 2 new post-doctoral trainees each year. As we continue to build our program we plan to continue to expand our interdisciplinary research collaborations in general with two strategic areas of focus in particular: a) leveraging UW strengths in Genome Sciences to further develop bioinformatics interdisciplinary collaborations, and b) leveraging UW history of excellence in clinical research by helping support a broad UW effort to establish an Institute for Clinical and Translational Science.
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