MENTORING IN PATIENT-ORIENTED RESEARCH IN DEEP PHENOTYPING IN CARDIO-ONCOLOGY

PROJECT SUMMARY This is an application for a K24 mentoring award for patient-oriented research (POR) from Bonnie Ky, MD, MSCE, the Founders Associate Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ky’s long-term goals are to lead clinical science that will uncover actionable knowledge to improve the cardiovascular care of cancer patients and survivors. This has involved developing a deep- phenotyping approach in which individual patient risk is determined through detailed assessment of patient clinical characteristics, biologic markers, and echocardiography-derived measures of myocardial mechanics and function, and the development of innovative strategies to mitigate risk. The candidate has a strong track record of mentorship, research productivity, program building, and leadership in cardio-oncology. This mid-career development award is critical to allow her the necessary protected time to further augment her mentoring skills in the training of early career researchers and physician scientists in cardio-oncology, and develop new skills in biomedical informatics, the social determinants of health (SDOH), and healthcare disparities. The scientific goals of the proposal are to define the impact of racial inequities in cardio-oncology through a detailed analysis of patient-level data from the electronic medical records (EMR) of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. This comprehensive study of the SDOH by race will offer new opportunities in: 1) detailed methodologic experience in biomedical informatics, EMR-based research, data science, natural language processing, study design, and analytics; 2) greater experience and understanding of the SDOH and healthcare disparities as it relates to cardio-oncology. There are little data as it relates to cardio-oncology disparities, and this is a highly significant area of new growth. The mentoring goals are to train and support the next generation of diverse physician scientists in cardio-oncology POR. The career development goals are to further support and grow the candidate’s professional development, education in SDOH science and biomedical informatics, skills as a mentor and leader, and program building skills in cardio-oncology. The institutional environment for clinical and translational POR at Penn is outstanding. The Department of Medicine at Penn has made a substantial commitment toward the candidate’s continued success as a patient-oriented researcher responsible for the current and future training physician scientists in cardio-oncology POR. A highly qualified mentoring team and team of collaborators comprised of experts in SDOH science, cancer clinical trials, healthcare disparities, cardiovascular science, biomedical informatics, EMR-based research and natural language processing, and advanced statistical methods will work closely with Dr. Ky. Together, they will ensure the success of this proposal and of Dr. Ky as a mentor to the next generation of cardio-oncology physician scientists in POR.