CTSI Mentored Clinical/Translational Research Scholars Program

Project Description Narrative:

This project will support the training of clinical and translational investigators. The Clinical and Translational Science Institute is committed to a coordinated continuum of clinical/translational research education and training opportunities. This involves expanding and enhancing training in clinical and translational research, to include a component to support post-doctoral training. The focus of this new post-doctoral training curriculum provides multidisciplinary career development support for Clinical-Translational investigators in our Mentored Scholars Program (K12 program).

The K12 training program has been developed for faculty with the overall goal and vision to improve human health by transforming the research and training environment to enhance the efficiency and quality of clinical and translational research.

Many junior faculty are interested in developing their biomedical research careers, but do not have the background or the dedicated time to pursue their research interests. The K12 program provides the ability to protect up to 75% effort dedicated to research and with the mentoring support structured into the program participating junior faculty have the potential to develop into leaders in the biomedical research field.

Through the growth of K12 scholars as clinical and translational investigators, the Wisconsin health care delivery system will be transformed. An increase in the number trained translational researchers and the resultant multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations has the potential to expedite the translation of basic and clinical research findings into treatments and therapies for the benefit of the public. Previous K12 scholars have developed into independent investigators with active translational research programs focusing on diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.