METEOR-Integrated Training Environment (METEORITE)

Project Summary Through existing advances in the field of radiation oncology, it has become clear that success is best achieved when experts in biology, physics, and clinical medicine collaborate. However, as technology and treatment paradigms grow more complex, it has become increasingly difficult for experts to maintain cutting-edge specialization in their own specific discipline and at the same time, converge to facilitate multi-disciplinary collaboration. While current graduate training does expose trainees to fields outside their own, this exposure is insufficient to develop meaningful research collaborations across the modern oncology workforce. A formal training program that can provide both breadth and depth in the theme areas of tumor biology, tumor immune microenvironment, advanced imaging and treatment technologies, and informatics is needed to allow trainees to develop a set of common cross-disciplinary fundamentals that can then be used to accelerate multidisciplinary research in radiation oncology. Given the amount of data generated in the fields of cancer biology, medical physics, and clinical radiation oncology, we envision that our ROBIN program cross training core, METEORITE (METEOR Integrated Training Environment), will use data science and informatics as the common language to facilitate communication and promote interdisciplinary collaboration, with the ultimate goal of leveraging this model across the ROBIN network to increase collaboration among the larger oncology workforce. In Aim 1, we will first develop an interdisciplinary training program within our own METEOR ROBIN Center by integrating pre-existing courses and established training programs to support METEOR and related science. Trainees will develop an individualized training pathway that will allow them to partake in common coursework while also customizing their learning. In Aim 2, we will develop new digital content resources for key high need topics such as clinical trial design and the fundamentals of TME for non-specialists to be used within METEORITE but also disseminated across the wider ROBIN network. Finally, in Aim 3, we will develop and host both in-person and virtual seminar series and symposia to promote trainee cohesion within METEOR and across the ROBIN network. The goal of these seminar series and symposia is to develop leadership skills among ROBIN network trainees and also to ensure our developed content can be disseminated and used to promote interdisciplinary collaboration in the future workforce. Through funding of METEORITE, we will generate resources and career development expertise that will facilitate a future NIH T32 application focused on training, disseminating and advancing multidisciplinary informatic partnerships radiation oncology.