Enrichment Program

ENRICHMENT PROGRAM PROJECT SUMMARY The Cleveland DDRCC Enrichment has three major goals: 1) to foster membership development, 2) to attract new investigators and established investigators without a focus in digestive or liver diseases to the DDRCC, and 3) to disseminate knowledge gained from the presence of the Center. To continue to achieve these goals during the next funding cycle, the Enrichment Program proposes the following Specific Aims: (1) Continue to organize the DDRCC Seminar Series, which fosters an environment ripe for collaboration opportunities between Center members through research-in-progress talks and a distinguished visiting professor lecture series. Research-in-progress talks enhance awareness among the membership of the breadth and depth of digestive and liver research currently being conducted by the Research Base. During the previous funding cycle, the distinguished visiting professors lecture series invited nationally and internationally renowned experts to speak (both in-person and virtually during the Covid pandemic) on topics related to our Center’s central theme, Mechanisms of Digestive and Liver Inflammation. (2) Continue to organize membership retreats to obtain critical feedback from our DDRCC Research Base investigators. The retreat is open to all DDRCC members to discuss programmatic, operational, and research issues related to the Center, and is an essential component of the Center’s process for understanding the evolving needs of our members and adapting accordingly, as well as identifying synergistic areas of research that can be targeted for future collaboration. Provisional Center members are encouraged to attend. (3) Continue to organize the biannual Cleveland IDEAS Symposium to foster membership development, attract investigators, and disseminate scientific knowledge in digestive and liver disease research. This highly lauded symposium, fully planned for 2020 but then postponed due to Covid, was safely resumed in-person in 2023 with a scientific program entitled “State-of-the-Art Forum on Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Celiac Disease, and Food Allergies”. (4) Continue to support the professional development of junior investigators. A major focus of the Cleveland DDRCC is development of junior investigators in digestive and liver disease research. During the previous funding period, our DDRCC Young Investigators Network adapted and evolved through the Covid pandemic and developed a new “Professional Career Development Series” in collaboration with our NIDDK T32 postdoctoral fellows. The Network meets regularly to promote mentorship and career development and provides critical feedback for scientific papers and grant applications, as well as a mock study section. (5) Continue to promote and develop Center communication. The DDRCC Enrichment Program also coordinates communication among DDRCC members at both CWRU and the CCF through management of the Cleveland DDRCC website, social media account on X (formerly Twitter) and production of an electronic newsletter that includes announcements related to Core services updates, special events, and sponsored seminars.