The San Diego Regional Network Award for Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Research Training - OVERALL – PROJECT SUMMARY This is a resubmission application for a new U2C/TL1, requesting support to promote high quality, collaborative training in kidney, urology, and hematology research in the San Diego area. The application represents a collaborative submission from the 3 major academic research institutions in the region inducing UC San Diego (UCSD), The Scripps Research Foundation (TSRI), and San Diego State University. This U2C/TL1 is designed to address the KUH mission areas, foster collaboration, and comprehensively address training and mentoring across the continuum of career stages. The San Diego U2C/TL1 builds upon the outstanding local resources and prior experience in pre- and post- doctoral research training. It builds upon recent successes fostering nephrology training through a T32 (2016- 2021), and recent post-doc successes at TSRI and SDSU. TSRI in an outstanding research institute, with 2 of the last 5 years’ Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, and is ranked in the top 10 for graduate training in biology and chemistry and has an outstanding track record for recruiting and training both pre- and post-doctoral scholars. SDSU offers a pool of over 30,000 undergraduate 3000 graduate students annually, with nearly 30% from under-represented minority (URM) backgrounds, and is a federally designated Hispanic serving institutions. It already has multiple joint programs with UCSD and is heavily invested in expanding pre- and post-doctoral training. UCSD is also a top 10 graduate program, offers over 6000 graduate students annually, and the only academic medical school in the region, providing a link to outstanding Departments and Divisions of Nephrology, Urology, Hematology, and other affiliated programs. With only 5 years of support, UCSD Nephrology’s T32 graduated 66% of its post-doc scholars with K-series or VA Career Development Awards (CDAs) – all of these individuals also secured faculty positions at research intensive institutions. Similar parallel successes occurred at TSRI and SDSU. These scholars came from a wide variety of disciplines but all focused on KUH research careers, demonstrating our abilities to guide young scientists to KUH research pathways. The grant is structured around 5 core pillars learned and carried forward as best practices from our recent training experiences, as we now expand our focus to hematology and urology, and across the career continuum. With highly successful and engaged TL1 faculty, pilot grants to foster collaboration across KUH disciplines, and to drive young scientists into KUH research careers, a vibrant network, substantial and well developed programs for professional development, and robust infrastructure and administrative support, this U2C/TL1 is uniquely positioned to train outstanding scientists in KUH research topics, and supply the workforce with innovative scientists making groundbreaking discoveries in KUH throughout their careers.
