This competitive renewal application for the University of Pennsylvania?s (PENN) Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award T32 Cancer Center Research Training Program seeks continued support to train and mentor physician scientists to develop a productive career in basic, translational and clinical research relevant to cancer medicine, acquiring skills that facilitate new discoveries with potential for direct translation to patient care. Our Training Program provides the critical protected time, mentorship, resources, educational experience, and environment necessary to achieve this goal. The Program is bolstered by the remarkable physical and human resources and strong institutional commitments of PENN and its Abramson Cancer Center, along with the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at the Children?s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The supporting infrastructure and the physical facilities create an environment that is designed to nurture and produce physician investigators committed to careers in academic medicine. Our Program, continuously funded for three decades, has been highly successful in developing the careers of young physician scientists. We currently have six training slots, all for post-doctoral trainees, and have focused on providing research training for adult and pediatric oncology MD and MD/PhD fellows in their 2nd and 3rd year of ACGME-accredited fellowship training programs at CHOP and PENN. Since inception, this ACC T32 has trained approximately one hundred outstanding young investigators, who have and are continuing to produce seminal advances in the field, including current world leaders in cancer research such as John Maris (CHOP) and W. Kimryn Rathmell (Vanderbilt), and emerging leaders such as David Barrett (CHOP), Shannon Maude (CHOP) and Alfred Garfall (PENN). Over the past twenty years we have supported 68 trainees, including 6 current trainees. Of the 61 living trainee graduates, 36 hold faculty positions as an Assistant (20), Associate Professor (12), or Professor (4) in academic medicine, 9 continue as an Instructor (8) or advanced subspecialty fellow (1), 10 hold leadership positions in the pharmaceutical industry, 1 is an FDA Medical Officer, and only 5 are in community-based oncology practices. We select trainees based on their demonstrated commitment and promise for cancer research. Once enrolled, our trainees develop a tailored curriculum based on their specific research interests, the core of which is a research project conducted in the laboratory of their mentor, supplemented by didactic coursework and research seminars. Trainee progress is closely monitored with an individualized plan that is customized for each Trainee by their Scholarship Oversight Committee. The T32 Executive Committee and a new Advisory Committee review overall programmatic performance and individual Trainee success as measured by publications, funding, and independent careers in cancer research. This allows us to continually assess whether we are achieving program goals, and identifies opportunities for program modifications to meet the needs of our Trainees, which have evolved over time with the field of cancer medicine.
Advances in cancer medicine rely on innovative basic, translational and clinical research. This University of Pennsylvania Cancer Research Training Program strives to recruit and train the next generation of clinician scientists, providing them with the skills to make discoveries with potential for direct translation to patient care.
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