Multidisciplinary Pulmonary and Critical Care Training Program

This is a competitive renewal application for continued T32 award funding to support a Multidisciplinary Training Program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Research at the University of Utah School of Medicine. The overall goal of this Training Program is to help develop the next generation of MD and PhD scientists to advance our knowledge of disease processes in the broad arena of pulmonary and critical care medicine, and to translate this knowledge to care of our patients. This Training Program has been very successful to date; the great majority of our trainees have excellent publication records, have advanced into active research careers in academic medicine, and most have obtained funding to support their research. These trainees include both MD and PhD investigators, addressing questions in basic and clinical research. The Program faculty for this training program consists of 15 successful scientists drawn from a range of disciplines, including cell and molecular biology, quantitative research and modeling, outcomes research and human genetics; all have a strong history of training young investigators and are involved in collaborative translational and cross- disciplinary research projects. We propose continued support of 4 trainee positions (MD or PhD) for post- doctoral training, with a minimum of 2 years in the training program. Trainees are recruited from the fellowship program in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine or from the research programs of individual mentors; they may elect either a basic research or clinical research pathway. Key components of the Training Program include a mentored individual research project, didactic courses relevant to the trainee’s chosen field and courses and experiences intended to broaden the trainee’s research perspective. Trainees on the clinical research pathway typically enroll in a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation degree program. All trainees will take courses to enhance opportunities for long-term success in a research career (Scientific Writing, Grant Writing), in the Responsible Conduct of Research and to enhance Rigor and Reproducibility in research. An important priority for this program is to prepare trainees to function within multidisciplinary teams. Therefore, a central feature of the Program is the use of individual mentorship committees composed of the mentor, and both basic and clinical researchers. These committees will continually expose the trainees to multidisciplinary approaches to key problems, encouraging trainees to look beyond the home discipline of their projects. Based on the special institutional strengths at the University of Utah trainees, will have extensive opportunities to develop useful competencies in genetics, biomedical informatics, nanotechnology, geriatrics and environmental contributions to lung disease. This ongoing program will equip young scientists to pursue future investigations in pulmonary and critical care medicine, with emphasis on translational science flowing from mechanistic discoveries and multidisciplinary approaches.