Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Training Grant

Program Director:  David Randall, Ph.D.
Co-Director: Alan Daugherty, Ph.D.

Description
The University of Kentucky Interdisciplinary Cardiovascular Training Program will equip young investigators to pursue a long-term research and teaching career in the cardiovascular sciences. The development of our training program over the ~4 years since its inception has been significantly strengthened by: (a) the recent selection by the University of Kentucky central administration of the cardiovascular sciences as an area for focused development; and (b) the establishment of the Cardiovascular Research Center. These new developments have provided our 31 training faculty, administratively housed in 11 academic departments, 3 Colleges and 3 Centers, with a tightly-knit community framework within which to pursue collaborative research and to mentor young scientists. We propose in this application to train 5 pre-doctoral fellows and 4 summer Minority Scholars. Our goal for the latter group is to introduce them to the excitement of research and teaching as a career option; we have been demonstrably successful in this endeavor to date. Our goals for the predoctoral fellows are to:(a) provide rigorous, state-of-the-art education in the basic sciences of the cardiovascular system; (b) provide training in ethical conduct of high quality laboratory research; (c) facilitate translational science by providing our trainees with the requisite tools and experience to compete effectively in this arena; and (d) create future citizens of science by fostering an environment that promotes advocacy of research with highest ethical standards. We accomplish this using a curriculum that combines formal didactic courses, multiple offerings of weekly journal clubs focused upon different aspects of the cardiovascular system, a weekly seminar series, and special events such as our annual Cardiovascular Research Day. Our faculty have extensive and demonstrable experience in co-mentoring of predoctoral fellows; this particularly includes experience of senior faculty in co-mentoring trainees with more junior faculty, thereby helping the latter develop their own careers. The depth and quality of our applicant pool is easily demonstrated by the 23 individuals with solid undergraduate GPA and GRE scores that applied for the 11 positions we have offered to date.

Training Faculty

Douglas Andres, Biochemistry
Dennis Bruemmer, Internal Medicine
Kenneth Campbell, Physiology
Lisa Cassis, Pharmacology
Alan Daugherty, Internal Medicine
Frederick de Beer, Internal Medicine
Brian Delisle, Physiology
Brandon Fornwalt, Pediatrics and Biomedical Engineering
Ming Gong, Physiology
Greg Graf, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Zhenheng Guo, Internal Medicine
Bernhard Hennig, Animal Sciences
Victoria King, Internal Medicine
Terry Lennie, College of Nursing
Charles Loftin, Pharmaceutical Sciences
Andrew Morris, Internal Medicine
Debra K. Moser, College of Nursing
Mariana Nikolova-Karakashian, Physiology
Abhijit Patwardhan, Graduate Center Biomedical Engineering
Kevin Pearson, Nutritional Sciences
David Randall, Physiology
Jon Satin, Physiology
Susan Smyth, Internal Medicine
Daret St. Clair, Toxicology
Lisa Tannock, Internal Medicine
Nancy Webb, Internal Medicine
Deneys van der Westhuyzen, Internal Medicine
Craig Vander Kooi, Biochemistry
Sidney Whiteheart, Biochemistry
Changcheng Zhou, Nutritional Sciences

Advisors

Richard Charnigo, Biostatistics, External Advisory Board
Ada Sue Selwitz, Office of Research Integrity, External Advisory Board

Executive Committee Members

Lisa Cassis, Pharmacology
Alan Daugherty, Internal Medicine
Debra Moser, College of Nursing
Dave Randall, Physiology
Susan Smyth, Internal Medicine
Daret St. Clair, Toxicology
Deneys van der Westhuyzen, Internal Medicine

External Advisory Board