Mentoring and Patient-Oriented Research in Integrative Medicine

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT This Midcareer Investigator Award (K24) renewal will continue to support Dr. Gloria Yeh in patient-oriented research and mentoring of trainees in the field of complementary and integrative health (CIH). Over the past 20+years, Dr. Yeh has developed a successful program of CIH research with a focus on mind-body (MB) exercise interventions in patients with chronic illness. Her research program is based at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School (HMS), where she serves as Director of Mind-Body Research and Director of the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)-funded T32 post- doctoral research fellowship. With the support of the first cycle of this K24, Dr. Yeh has continued to advance CIH through several local and national leadership roles, such as her promotion to Director of Clinical Research at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at HMS, serving on the NIH National Advisory Council on Complementary and Integrative Health, and multiple years chairing of the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and Health’s International Congress (ICIMH). She has been highly successful in achieving research and mentoring benchmarks, including completion of 3 NIH funded grants (including 2 NCCIH R01s), as well as mentoring 17 new trainees (6 who are currently on K awards and another 6 have K grants submitted/pending). She was also recognized with the HMS Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2018. Dr. Yeh’s current research program includes 2 new or pending NCCIH R01s as principal investigator focused on multimodal approaches combining wearable fitness trackers and remotely-delivered MB movement interventions to promote physical activity in chronic cardiopulmonary populations. She also serves a key collaborator role on several other NIH or VA-funded MB studies. This K24 renewal outlines career development initiatives for continued enhancement of her successful research and mentoring program including further leadership training and continuing education in evolving research areas (e.g., e-health and wearables). The overall Program Aims highlight three central themes which represent current research and areas of future expansion which align very closely with NCCIH priorities around whole person health. These themes are:1) To conduct rigorous research evaluating the clinical efficacy and mechanisms of MB therapies as whole person health in cardiovascular, pulmonary, and other chronic conditions; 2) To investigate movement-based MB therapies for behavior change, particularly the promotion of physical activity. 3)To apply innovative methodology to better understand the contributions of individual, active components of multimodal MB approaches. In implementing each these areas, Dr. Yeh’s research is increasingly leveraging e-technology for remote intervention delivery as well as wearable technology for data collection. With the protected time in the renewal of this K24, Dr. Yeh will be able to continue advancing CIH research and provide a diverse, supportive environment to train the next generation of academic investigators.