Research Training
The Basic and Experimental Track | The Clinical Track | The Translational Research Track | Interaction With Other Research Divisions
Intensive research training is offered in three separate programmatic areas: basic and experimental research track, translational research track and clinical research track.
The program pays great attention to mentorship on the personal and academic level. The program director meets with the fellows every six months and more frequently when needed to assure that he fellows remain on track in all aspects of the fellowship training. A long list of faculty within and outside the division is also available for the fellows to choose as mentors. To better coordinate the fellows' mentorship in research, the fellowship recently formed an 'Educational Council'.
The council is headed by Nives Zimmermann, MD, and has Amal Assa'ad, MD, Marc Rothenberg, MD, PhD, Simon Hogan, PhD, Gurjit Khurana Hershey,MD, PhD, and Kimberly Risma, MD, PhD as faculty members, as well as a rotating fellow member. The council formalizes the research plans for the fellowship and the Scientific Oversight Committee for each fellow.
The general plan of preparation for research training starts during the interview process, where candidates express to us their areas of interest in research. When a candidate is matched to our program, and even prior to their arrival, the program directors maintains contact with the future fellow to update him/her on research educational and training grant opportunities. On arrival, the fellow is given a temporary mentor from the members of the educational council. This mentor assists the fellow in choosing members of their personal Scientific Oversight Committee (SOC). The SOC is to be formed from at least 3 voting members in addition to the program director, who is a non-voting member. The voting members must include at least one member from Allergy and Immunology and at least one member from another division in the institution. The SOC is to meet with the fellow within the first 3 months of training. The first meeting is for the fellow to discuss research ideas. The SOC subsequently meets every 3-6 months to keep track of the development of the research hypothesis, the generation of data (if the fellow is already in their research year) and the significance of the results.
The fellows can also choose additional mentors from the faculty of either institution for personal and career support.
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The basic and experimental track
- Instruction in basic immunology is provided to all fellows via weekly year-long review of the 'Cellular and Molecular Immunology' textbook, by Abbas, Lichtman and Pober. The textbook topics are supplemented by reviews selected by faculty mentors, Nives Zimmermann, MD, Simon Hogan, PhD, Marc E. Rothenberg, MD, PhD and Amal Assa'ad, MD, of recent articles from immunology journals, e.g., Immunity, Nature Immunology, Journal of Immunology, and Immunology Today.
- The University of Cincinnati Department of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology and the graduate program in Immunobiology offer courses such as Advanced Proteins and Membranes, Advanced Molecular Genetics, Developmental Biology and Immunology. The fellows can enroll in these courses as non-degree students to strengthen their basic knowledge.
- The fellows develop competency in performing research techniques that are pertinent to their particular research project. For examples, the trainees in Marc Rothenberg's laboratory learn the following techniques: DNA cloning, sequencing, DNA chips; animal breeding, husbandry and genotyping; transgenic engineering; tissue culture; microscopy including morphometric analysis; histologic identification of lymphocytes, mast cells, eosinophils, etc; immunohistochemistry, mRNA in situ hybridization; cytokine assays- ELISA, polymerase chain reactions; southern, northern, and western blotting; electrophoresis and data analysis:graphs, statistics, interpretation.
- The fellows attend the laboratory meetings of the laboratory with which they will be affiliated, as well as the divisional and inter-divisional laboratory meetings. The faculty mentor coaches the fellow in the presentation of their research data.
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The clinical track
The fellows on this track are enrolled in the master's degree program offered by the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics of the University of Cincinnati.
This program has a special track of Clinical Epidemiology that is designed for physicians in residency or fellowship. The program offers courses in environmental health, statistics, biostatistics and epidemiology. The master's thesis research is drawn from the clinical research work conducted by the clinical members of both fellowship tracks in project related to epidemiology, risk assessment for childhood asthma or allergic sensitization early in life. Alternatively, trainees may become involved in investigator initiated research examining efficacy of new therapeutic agents in the treatment of asthma or other allergic disorders. Outcomes research would also be an option and would be conducted under the mentorship of a faculty advisor from the Division of Outcomes Research, Department of Internal Medicine, Dr. Joel Tsevat.
This program is supplemented by courses and seminars offered by divisional courses including: Introduction to Clinical Research, Presenting and Writing skills, Ethics in Research, Fellows Teaching Workshop and Grant Fundamentals. Additionally, fellows receive instruction on important issues related to human subjects, ethics and patient confidentiality as well as receive instruction on good clinical practices in human research through course work and their daily interactions with their faculty sponsors in clinical research.
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The translational research track
In 2001, the Cincinnati Children's Board of Trustees established a new Translational Research Initiative (TRI) to build an institutional infrastructure for supporting and promoting translational sciences. The program is based on the fact that increasing survival and decreasing morbidity from serious, debilitating and chronic illnesses stands as a cornerstone of the vision of all great academic health centers. Like many truly worthy goals, however, impacting the outcome of diseases through research and discovery may be the most difficult of all the missions of academic centers.
The TRI was created in an attempt to help Cincinnati Children's researchers overcome some of the obstacles inherent in thismission.
The 3 major components of the TRI are a stimulative grants program, an infrastructure to support clinical trials (Translational Research Trials Office, TRTO), and an educational program. The grants program has provided funds totaling $800,000 annually and has had a high return on investment as measured by subsequent extramural funding and publications. The clinical trial support has also enjoyed success with the opening of over 40 human protocols, including 12 investigator-initiated Investigational New Drug (IND) trials, spanning 5 different clinical divisions. The educational program has sponsored an annual symposium; local, national, and international workshops; and multiple divisional retreats. In addition, the initial steps in establishing a master's degree program in translational research have been undertaken with the funding of a K30 training grant. The total annual commitment of Cincinnati Children's to these combined efforts is $1.3 million. This program has been described in detail in Cripe et al., Academic Medicine, 2005.
Translational Research Trials Office. The faculty and staff of the TRTO are well versed in federal and local regulations governing clinical research. Among other accomplishments, the TRTO has worked with regulatory oversight committees to address patient safety in early-phase human trials and assisted with an organized approach to data safety monitoring; established a successful normal donor program that provides bone marrow, blood, and umbilical cord blood to investigators; helped multiple investigators file INDs with the FDA; established and/or managed over 40 clinical trials; organized annual educational symposia; provided support for many retreats and workshops focused on translational research; provided an administrative structure and assistance in protocol development for an NIH-funded rare disease network; developed a training program for translational research; and managed a grants program that has led in part to more than $17 million of extramural funding and to numerous publications.
Education in Translational Sciences. The Cincinnati Children's TRTO sponsors an annual symposium to address current issues facing investigators involved with translational research. National experts have been brought in as keynote speakers for each symposium, and attendance has ranged from 60-140 participants. The first symposium (spring, 2002) focused on ethics of human subject research; the second symposium (spring, 2003) focused on issues related to developing phase I trials, such as FDA IND regulations and FDA Good Clinical Practices. The third symposium (spring, 2004) was designed to help Cincinnati Children's investigators navigate the complex core facilities and regulatory committees at Cincinnati Children's. A recent symposium (spring, 2005) was a custom-made introductory certification course directed to principal investigators in preparation for the clinical investigator certification exams administered either by the Drug Information Association or by the Association of Clinical Research Professionals.
In addition to the TRTO-supported symposia, the TRTO recognizes the need for more formal training of investigators seeking to conduct translational research. In collaboration with clinical investigators at Cincinnati Children's and UCCOM, the TRTO was instrumental in developing a post-graduate translational research-training track primarily aimed at persons currently undergoing subspecialty training. Highlights of the program include basic courses in epidemiology and biostatistics, training in components of an IND application and design of early-phase clinical trials, and courses reviewing disease-specific translational research. In 2007, a retreat was conducted on "The future of research in academic settings." In 2008, a retreat on Investigator-Initiated trials was conducted.
On this track, the fellows can be enrolled in an existing master's degree program in Molecular Epidemiology offered by the University of Cincinnati in Department of Molecular Genetics and Division of Epidemiology, Department of Environmental Health. The goal of the program is to train pre-doctoral and post-doctoral students in Molecular Epidemiology, specifically in the area of Children's Environmental Health. The program brings together a unique configuration of focused research interests of faculty in the Department of Environmental Health, Department of Medicine, the Department of Pediatrics, and the Department of Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology. The program is best suited to train fellows in translational research because of its strong epidemiology and genetic component. This programmatic track is directly by Gurjit Khurana Hershey, MD, PhD.
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Interaction with Other Research Division
The Graduate Program in Immunobiology. Cincinnati Children's is the administrative home for the University of Cincinnati Immunobiology Graduate Program. The program was designed to meet a growing demand for well-trained immunologists, both in the academic institutions and in the industry. Students who graduate from the program can go on to contribute to the cure or improvement of many immunological disorders, such as: 1) Infectious diseases: HIV/AIDS, peptic ulcer disease, 2) Autoimmune diseases: multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, 3) Allergic diseases: asthma, 4) Cardiovascular disease: coronary artery disease, 5) Neurodegenerative disease: Alzheimer's disease, 6) Genetic diseases: cystic fibrosis, lysosomal storage diseases, 7) Cancers:lymphoma, cervical cancer. The program is one of very few in the nation offering PhD and master degrees in the specialty.
In addition to the formal graduate training program, the program continues to offer several educational opportunities for those interested in immunology at Cincinnati Children's. Participation in the Distinguished Lecturer in Immunology Series, Immunochematology Club, and Immunology Research Series continues to grow. Through the combination of these activities, the program is meeting the goal of training pre- and post-doctoral students, and/or clinicians for research careers aimed at understanding the fundamental molecular and cellular basis of immune responses in health and disease. The program fosters and strengthens collaborations within the immunology community and provides expertise in utilization of immunological research approaches. These efforts have led to submission with successful funding of joint grant proposals with members of the Division of Allergy and Immunology.
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