Research Training Program in Disease-Oriented Neuroscience (R25) - SUMMARY This Research Training Program in Disease Oriented Neuroscience is designed to facilitate the transition between graduate training and a research-based career in neurology and neurosurgery. R25 program trainees receive career mentoring from experienced clinician scientists in Neurology and Neurosurgery along with research mentoring from leading clinical neuroscience laboratory research faculty drawn from multiple departments and schools within the University of Pennsylvania. A focused educational program supplements laboratory research and includes training in translational research methods, applications, and the responsible conduct of research. The program is conducted in a large research-oriented institution with leading residency programs in adult and child neurology and in neurosurgery that trains some of the best candidates in the country and has an outstanding track record of fostering research oriented careers and trainee diversity. Over the past program period, 6 of the 7 graduating R25 trainees have received K awards. The R25 pathway has been further integrated into the residency training program at all phases including residency application review, applicant visit and interview procedures, advance mentorship and research opportunities for matriculated applicants, intensive support for the selection of mentors and the development of an R25 supplement request, and multiple levels of clinician scientist career development support. Between the neurology and neurosurgery residencies, there are over 200 faculty members in our departments, ranging from master clinicians, clinical educators, and clinical investigators to physician/scientists and basic scientists. 80% of graduating residents over the past 15 years have remained in academic medicine, and many have chosen careers as clinician scientists. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at the Perelman School of Medicine, where most of the clinical residency and fellowship training occurs, are located within a highly compact university campus in West Philadelphia spanning a radius of less than one half mile. Penn is also home to the first neuroscience institute in the country, the Mahoney Institute for Neurosciences, which consolidates almost 200 faculty members from 32 departments and six schools engaged in neuroscience research at Penn. The range of research opportunities for our R25 trainees can thus be extended to the wider neuroscience community inside and outside of our clinical departments through co- mentorship of trainees with a diverse array of eminent scientists carrying out research relevant to the NINDS mission to reduce the burden of neurological disease.
