Medical Scientist Training Program - Enter the text here that is the new abstract information for your application. This section must be no longer than 30 lines of text. This proposal requests support for the MSTP at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine (UCCOM). Our dual-degree program was established in 1985 and has been continuously NIH-funded for over 20 years. It enrolls 9 new students each year and currently includes 73 students. A unique and central feature of our program is that our MSTP is a partnership between a top ranked college of medicine and a premier children’s hospital (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital). The atmosphere afforded by seamless alignment of research and clinical practice provides the ideal research environment for significant and impactful health related research. The overarching mission of the UCCOM MSTP is to recruit, mentor, and educate physician scientists who will become leaders in their chosen careers that integrate clinical medicine and research to advance clinically relevant science and improve health. Our Program is supported by a solid infrastructure in clinical and research training. Our students can choose from 11 graduate programs spanning neuroscience, bioinformatics, immunology, developmental biology, and cancer and cell biology. The success of our Program is best illustrated by the success of our graduates. Our students come from a highly qualified applicant pool drawn from across the nation. For the class that matriculated in the Fall of 2021, we had 189 applicants, which included applications from 37 states and Washington DC. The average time to complete our MSTP for the last 10 years is 8.0 years and our students have matched at the most competitive residency programs. Since the last funding period, several important and exciting developments have taken place, which include increases in the size and quality of our applicant pool, our program faculty, extramural research support among our program faculty, number and breadth of training opportunities for MD/PhD candidates, increased individualized advising, expanded multi-pronged mentoring approaches, efforts designed to increase recruitment and retention of the highest quality students, expansion of both UCCOM and CCHMC facilities, and implementation of evidence-based approaches to mentoring including required mentor training for all participating faculty. We are confident that we can continue to achieve our aims and meet the central goal of our program. Towards this goal, we are requesting support for 18 positions.
