Institutional Career Development Core (KL2)

The fundamental objective of the UC Davis Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) Institutional Career Development Core (KL2) is to transform scholars into independent investigators with the strategic skills, broad perspectives, and knowledge necessary to be successful leaders in academic, community, and industry settings. By building on the robust CTSC foundation we have furthered the translational research education and career development mission across UC Davis, created multi-faceted training tools for individualized training and career development beyond incremental advances, and provided a mentoring team resource that fosters the careers of a continuously growing community of scholars and mentors. There remains a critical need for exceptional clinical and translational investigators adept at team science that are able to advance human health research and healthcare and that are keenly aware of the perspectives and viewpoints of the US demography and the special needs of the communities we serve. During the prior and current funding periods, we have trained 32 exceptional early career faculty who have shown subsequent success in our program affirming that scholars obtain the necessary skills and training to pursue an independent career as a translational scientist. To continue our strong trajectory the specific goals of the program in the next funding period include the following: (1) Foster a broadly trained, multidisciplinary, team-oriented workforce with capabilities to address complex clinical and translational challenges; (2) Promote opportunities that enhance leadership skills and a successful transition to independence; and (3) Synergize interactions with regional career development programs to reach a broad community of translational scholars and to support a network for knowledge sharing and collaboration.