The Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24) is designed to provide clinicians protected time for patient-oriented research and to act as mentors for beginning clinical investigators. For the purposes of this award patient-oriented research is defined as research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens and cognitive phenomena)for which an investigator directly interacts with human subjects. This area of research includes 1) mechanisms of human disease; 2) therapeutic interventions; 3) clinical trials, and; 4) the development of new technologies. Studies falling under Exemption 4 for human subjects research are not included in this definition.

Applicants must have a health-professional doctoral degree or its equivalent. Such degrees include but are not limited to the M.D., D.O., D.D.S., D.M.D., O.D., D.C., Pharm.D., N.D. (Doctor of Naturopathy), as well as a doctoral degree in nursing. (Individuals with Ph.D. degrees are eligible for this award if the degree is in a clinical field and they usually perform clinical duties. This may include clinical psychologists, clinical geneticists, speech and language pathologists.) Applicants must be citizens of the United States, or non-citizen nationals, or must have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence and possess an Alien Registration Receipt Card (1-151 or 1-551) or some other verification of legal admission as a permanent resident at the time of the award. Individuals on temporary visas are not eligible for this award.

Applicants should be at the Associate Professor level, or are functioning at that rank in an academic setting or equivalent non-academic setting. They must have independent peer-reviewed support in patient - oriented research at the time of the application for this program, and must have an established record of independent, peer-reviewed patient-oriented research grant funding and record of publications.

Applicants must be able to commit up to 50 percent effort (at least 25 percent) to this award. The remainder of time may be devoted to other clinical, teaching, or research pursuits consistent with the objectives of the award.

The K24 award provides support in the form of salary, ancillary personnel support (e.g., secretarial and administrative assistance), and up to $50,000 for research development, for expenses such as supplies/equipment, technical support for the investigator and his/her mentored clinical investigators, and travel to meetings.

Program Announcement

Next Section >