Wednesday, April 2, 2025
4/2/2025
Pre and Post-Doctoral Training in Joint Health - We propose a predoctoral and postdoctoral training program in the multi-disciplinary area of musculoskeletal biology and mechanics with the ultimate aim of developing future leaders in orthopedic- and rheumatology- related research. The program emphasizes research training in joint health, encompassing five major programmatic areas: osteoarthritis and cartilage, total joint replacement, bone disease and regeneration, spine degeneration, and small molecule therapeutics. Dr. Rick Sumner (Anatomy & Cell Biology) will serve as the principal investigator with Dr. Markus Wimmer (Orthopedic Surgery) and Dr. Rachel Miller (Internal Medicine- Rheumatology) as the co-directors. We are requesting support for two predoctoral, three postdoctoral fellows and three short-term trainees. Joint health is a theme that connects many departments at Rush, offering an environment and intellectual capital available to trainees that is unique in the nation. The multidisciplinary training that is offered integrates the research endeavors of scientists in basic science and clinical departments with clinician investigators, caregivers, and educators who specialize in musculoskeletal disease and joint health. The training themes for this grant represent the strengths of the preceptors who have been selected as mentors. Training will take place in the laboratories of 28 faculty in 3 basic science departments (Anatomy & Cell Biology, Microbial Pathogens & Immunity and Physiology & Biophysics), 3 clinical departments (Internal Medicine, Orthopaedic Surgery and Pediatrics) and one center (Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center). There are currently 15 predoctoral students and 27 postdoctoral fellows in the training grant faculty labs. The 28 faculty are principal investigators on grants totaling nearly $20M in annual direct costs, mainly from NIH grants. We will continue to make every effort to recruit candidates with clinical training into our program. One means to encourage interest among clinical trainees is to provide meaningful introductory research experiences, justifying the continuance of our request for short-term trainee positions, which so far have been exclusively used by medical students in our program. There is a deep history of collaborative research among musculoskeletal researchers at Rush. We will take advantage of a reorganized Graduate College, a very strong mentoring program and an active postdoctoral research society that has created a vibrant community for trainees. Trainees will focus on knowledge acquisition, skill development, communications, professionalism, leadership and management skills, and responsible conduct of research. Each mentee, his/her primary advisor and thesis or mentoring committee will use individual development plans to guide their efforts with a focus on publishing and participating in national research meetings and submitting independent grants (F31’s for the predocs and F32’s for the postdocs). We anticipate that trainees will be assigned to the T32 for two years with the expectation that support will transfer to individual awards or their preceptors’ grants. After completing our program, we expect the trainees to continue their career path as independent, team-oriented, investigators.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).