CUIMC Calabresi Clinical Oncology Career Development Program

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This application seeks to establish the Paul Calabresi Career Development Award for Clinical Oncology (K12) at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUMC) and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center (HICCC). The proposed program, which will be called the CUIMC Calabresi Clinical Oncology Career Development Program (CUIMC-K12), will take advantage of the strong faculties in clinical medicine and basic and population sciences as well as the deep technologic resources of CUMC and the diverse community of patients it serves. As a Minority Underserved-NCI Community Oncology Research Program (MU-NCORP) site, we are positioned to train the next generation of clinician scientists from multiple specialties (Medical Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Surgical Oncology, Pediatric Oncology, Gynecologic Oncology) to perform translational, clinical and outcomes research with a health equity lens, emphasizing how diverse differences such as gender, race and zip code should be considered in preclinical and clinical study design, recruitment, conduct and analysis. We have chosen 46 of the top mentors at CUIMC, with average direct costs of grant support per mentor exceeding $1M, including physicians and scientists who are internationally recognized leaders for their research excellence and outstanding mentoring records. A core feature of our program is fostering multi-disciplinary cancer research by encouraging a mentorship team comprised of basic and translational mentors and clinical trial advisors. We will also include secondary mentors that are junior in nature, designated as ‘Junior Mentors,’ who will function as near peers to our Scholars and serve as the next generation of primary mentors. The comprehensive research training environment at CUIMC/HICCC will provide the Calabresi Scholars the advanced skills necessary to perform state-of-the-art clinical research with the ability to: 1. Perform pre-clinical, therapeutic, translational and population science/cancer care delivery state- of-the-art clinical research that develops and tests scientific hypotheses with the goal of reducing the mortality and morbidity of cancer. 2. Design and administer all phases (i.e., pilot/Phase I, II and III) of cancer clinical trials that prospectively evaluate clinical, biological, patient-reported and economic endpoints. 3. Conduct clinical cancer research in a diverse team setting to expedite and accelerate the translation of basic and observational research into patient-oriented clinical trials. 4. Consider how diversity should be included and emphasized in clinical study design, recruitment, conduct and analysis with a goal of reducing health disparities and increasing generalizability. 5. Obtain peer reviewed funding to support careers as independent clinician scientists.