Application Instructions
Please create one PDF document for uploading into the online application. Required sections should be in the order listed below. All documents should be ready prior to accessing the online application as you will not be able to save and go back nor will you be able to access your application once submitted. The application MUST include the following elements in the listed order: 1. Face page, 2. NIH Biosketches (X3), 3. Proposal, 4. Graduate courses completed with grades, 5. Letters of Support (x3), and 6. A description of ethical and regulatory training in clinical and translational research, including Responsible Conduct of Research and Good Clinical Practice, already completed and proposed for completion during the CCTSI T32 award. Additional detail and guidance are provided below. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
1. Face Page:
Download and complete the facepage and include as the first document in your application
package.
2. NIH Biosketch: Include an NIH biosketch (using the correct and current NIH format) for the applicant, research mentor and translational mentor. Please ensure that mentors detail their mentoring experience in the personal statement and consider underlining trainees’ names in co-authored citations/publications on the NIH biosketch. A translational mentor is the person that you will follow, observe and interact with to understand the target audience that you are translating your research for uptake. For those working in a lab, this may be a clinician or veterinarian and for clinicians, this could be a community organization, a veterinarian or a preclinical researcher. For veterinary trainees, a translational mentor will be a human health professional engaged in clinical and translational research and associated with the CCTSI, whose area of interest is complementary to your interest. In your NIH Biosketch, detail how your career plan builds on previous experiences and aligns with the proposed research plan. Please contact Kristen Nadeau, MD, MSCS for assistance with identifying a suitable clinician translational mentor; Paul MacLean, PhD for a lab-based translational mentor; Doug Thamm, VMD for a veterinary medicine translational mentor; Amira del Pino-Jones, MD for mentors and questions of mentoring across differences and diversity. The CCTSI’s Profiles tool may be useful in identifying a possible translational mentor with complementary interests of the applicant.
3. 5-page Proposal (max): Use Times New Roman or Arial 11-pt font or larger. Page margins no less than 1 inch on all four sides. In five pages, briefly provide a personal statement, a diversity statement, description of your planned research and research mentoring plan, and a description of your translational immersion experience and mentoring plan. Ensure that you have addressed all four areas listed below. Skipping an area or required element will reduce your overall score and thus its competitiveness. Please use headers for each of the following four elements. Each of these sections address review criteria that will impact the competitiveness of your application.
- Personal statement (approximately ½-1 page): Provide some background information and insight to give reviewers an idea of who you are. Describe your mid and long-term career goals and the activities (coursework, journal clubs, etc) and experiences that you will complete to meet your goals and prepare you for a career in clinical and translational research. Explain how the CCTSI T32 Post-Doctoral award will augment your current training program. What is the added value of the T32 program for you?
- Research project and research mentoring plan (approximately 2-3 pages): Describe the research project to be completed during your post-doctoral training period and its clinical and translational relevance. Provide your research questions/hypotheses, associated specific aims and a brief description of the methods. Explain how your research project translates into improving health. Consider alternative strategies and next steps.
- Research mentoring plan: Describe your mentoring plan with your research mentor, including the frequency and format of your meetings and types of training activities (coursework, experiential or hands-on learning, laboratory meetings, conferences, etc). What learning goals or needs will your research mentor help you achieve?
- Translational immersion experience and mentoring plan (approximately 1-1.5 pages): To support the trainees' abilities to work across the translational spectrum, trainees will identify a translational immersion experience and mentor that will allow their research to expand upon the translational spectrum, relevant to their proposed research. Immersion experiences can take many forms- laboratory, clinical services, community service, or veterinary medicine. Describe your proposed translational immersion experience and explain how your immersion and translational mentor extends the preparation and training of your current program and how it complements your personal learning goals and needs. Please describe the mentoring plan with your translational mentor in terms of frequency of meetings and activities (minimum 40 hrs per year). Consider holding quarterly meetings among you and your research and translational mentors to discuss your research project and the integration and interdisciplinary team approach. This section is a key element in the review and scoring process of applicants. You are encouraged to follow up with Lisa Cicutto, Kristen Nadeau, Doug Thamm, and/or Paul Maclean. Your research and translational mentor are not to be the same person.
For veterinary trainee, a translational mentor will be a human health professional engaged in clinical and translational research and associated with the CCTSI, whose area of interest is complementary to your interest. Immersion experiences can take many forms- laboratory, clinical services, community service, or veterinary medicine. In veterinary medicine immersions, activities could include shadowing, attendance at Rounds- pathology, imaging, oncology research rounds, lab experiences and research in progress meetings.
Clinical experience could include discussing patients after encounters, discussing patients in group settings such as rounds or registry meetings, assisting with recruitment, involvement in monitoring/management of adverse events during clinical studies, observing/participating in clinical study visits and informed consent, but should be working with clinicians in the applicant's usual practice.
Lab experiences could include learning new lab techniques and understanding/interpreting data relevant to patient-specific testing (i.e., learning flow cytometry, biomarkers).
Community immersion experiences could include working with patient advocacy organizations or government agencies. Activities can include attendance at community meetings, assisting with marketing and translational materials, and working on policy briefs.
Industry immersion experiences could include exposure to the trajectory of taking a drug/device to market. Activities could include attendance at meetings, working on marketing, regulatory brief/reports, study design, academic-industry partnerships.
4. Letters of Support: Your application must include letters of support (no longer than 2 pages each) from your: 1. research mentor, 2. translational mentor and 3. Post-doctoral program director. Letters from your mentors should support the aspects and details of your proposed mentoring plans with the research and translational mentor and should describe their prior experiences in mentoring, and current funding to support your proposed research. Please see guidelines.
5. Ethics, Regulatory training and IRB: Please provide a table or list of trainings, courses, workshops that you have completed and that you will complete during your CCTSI T32 Post-Doctoral T32 award related to ethics, responsible conduct of research, Good Clinical Practice, IACUC, etc. In addition, if IRB and/or IACUC approvals are necessary for proposed research, please submit the approval numbers and letters of approval.
