Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
Integrated Clinical and Basic Endocrinology Research - ABSTRACT We are now facing a shortage of endocrine physician scientists, who are among the individuals expected to present innovative solutions to our national health priorities. The goal of the Endocrine Research Training Program (ERTP) at the University of Chicago, now in its 46th year of NIH funding, is to train capable, creative, and thoughtful adult and pediatric endocrine physician scientists of diverse backgrounds for careers in modern endocrine investigation. At the completion of training, it is anticipated that trainees will be able to independently initiate investigations into areas important for understanding of endocrine disorders or of health disparities and economics in populations with endocrine disorders. In the past 15 years, 67% of our trainees have entered academic research positions, and 41% of these individuals have received subsequent funding, including K and R01 awards. The Aims of the ERTP are: (1) To recruit a competitive pool of physician postdoctoral fellows from diverse backgrounds who embrace a commitment to endocrinology research. (2) To engage physician fellows in an endocrine training pathway that integrates a basic/translational research component with a subspecialty training curriculum. (3) To graduate physician fellows who will be competitive for endocrine-related research funding. (4) To foster the interest of medical students to pursue careers in endocrinology through summer research opportunities To achieve these aims, we have assembled 35 training faculty from eight University departments who carry out a diverse range of endocrine-related research supported by a substantial base of NIH and other peer reviewed research grants. Trainees are selected on the basis of individual accomplishments including prior research training and experience as well as commitment to an academic research career. Trainees select a faculty preceptor(s) and the trainee and preceptor jointly identify a research project. Trainees then undergo intensive training under the purview of the preceptor, during which time they assume a progressively greater responsibility for developing research hypotheses, designing experiments, analyzing the data and preparing abstracts and scientific manuscripts. In the final year of training, an area of research is identified that is sufficiently different from the research of the preceptor to allow the trainee to submit an independent research grant proposal. This research training occurs within the framework of a required core curriculum consisting of coursework, responsible conduct of research training, and rigor and reproducibility training. As a result of this intensive training, more than two-thirds of trainees from this program assume academic positions upon completion of their training and remain active in endocrinology research.
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).