Project Concept Review
Project Title: CAM Practitioner Research Career Development Award (K01)
Program Officer:
Nancy J. Pearson, Ph.D.
Phone: 301-594-0519
E-mail: pearsonn@mail.nih.gov
Background
Part of the research training mission of NCCAM is to train complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioners who have an interest in pursuing a research career. Such CAM clinician-scientists bring valuable knowledge and experience of the CAM therapies they practice to research projects. These contributions enhance the quality of the research and make it more applicable to the real world practice of CAM. However, relative to conventional medical practitioners, such as M.D.s, CAM practitioners often have less opportunity to be involved in research experiences during their clinical training. While there are exceptions, as a result, CAM practitioners are often less competitive for career development awards and other types of grants awarded to postdoctoral trainees and newly independent research investigators.
Description
This initiative will provide up to 5 years of support for a CAM practitioner with a clinical doctorate who has never been a principal investigator on an NIH research, career, or fellowship grant. This funding will be through a mentored career development award (K01) and will provide salary, fringe benefits, and a research development fund. The award will provide the candidate with protected time to focus on broad research training under the guidance of a mentor. The research training would be through activities such as course work, seminars, attendance at scientific meetings, as well as the development and completion of a CAM research project. The mentor should be an expert in a research field relevant to the candidate's research interest. This could be a specific CAM research field or a conventional research field related to the candidate's CAM research project. The mentor should also be a productive, well-funded researcher at a conventional research-intensive institution who has experience training postdoctoral investigators and has an interest in CAM research. The institution should have the intellectual and physical resources to support the proposed research training and have a history of training postdoctoral scientists who have successfully obtained independent research positions.
Goals
The immediate goal of this initiative is to create an award mechanism that will allow CAM practitioners with clinical doctorates, who have a strong desire to pursue a research career in CAM, to be competitive for an NCCAM career development award. The long term goal is to encourage more CAM practitioners to enter research careers, thus enriching CAM research through their experience and knowledge of CAM. Since this award mechanism will be limited to CAM practitioners, it will give them a special opportunity to enter a biomedical research career training track at the postdoctoral level by competing for a career development award among themselves. The ultimate goal of this postdoctoral training is to equip the trainee with all the skills and knowledge he/she needs to compete successfully for research grants on par with individuals trained in conventional medical research settings, such as M.D.s and Ph.Ds.
Proposed Funding Mechanisms
K01 career development award
