Mayo Clinic Receives $13 Million NIH Award to Train Clinical Researchers and Advance Patient Care

Tuesday, November 30, 2004

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic has been awarded a five-year, $13 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to educate future leaders of clinical research and speed the translation of research discoveries into improved patient care.

The Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Award is a part of the NIH Roadmap initiative that is designed to strengthen and accelerate clinical research nationally and quickly bring new medical treatments to the public.

The award is unique, according to grant authors Sherine Gabriel, M.D., M.Sc., and David Warner, M.D., in its focus on creating multidisciplinary, integrated, clinical research teams comprised of diverse medical and scientific professionals, such as physicians, dentists, pharmacists, biostatisticians, epidemiologists, behavioral scientists and nurses with doctoral degrees. "A team approach is crucial for solving difficult medical problems that are too complex for scientists working in any single discipline to solve alone," states Duane Alexander, M.D., director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Mayo Clinic will use the grant to create a new Clinical Research Scholars Program and recruit up to eight postdoctoral research trainees each year from across the nation. The research scholars will be mentored by Mayo's senior clinical investigators and receive in-depth clinical research training. They will have extensive time dedicated to conducting patient-oriented research and access to Mayo's extensive research resources.

"Mayo has a tradition of excellence and innovation in clinical research, and a deep commitment to education. Building on these traditions and by providing a rigorous integrated curriculum combined with dedicated protected time for scholars, the Clinical Research Scholars Program will produce leaders of the multidisciplinary teams that will drive clinical research in the 21st century," says Dr. Gabriel, who also serves as director of Mayo's Clinical Research Training Program. "This collaboration with NIH will enable Mayo Clinic to lend its clinical research strengths to serve national needs and ultimately to speed translation of scientific discoveries to improved patient care," Dr. Warner adds.

Mayo Clinic is one of seven academic medical centers from a highly competitive field to receive the award, and was cited for its strong clinical research infrastructure and team-oriented approach.

The multidisciplinary clinical research training will use methods in epidemiology, clinical research, behavioral sciences and biostatistics to focus on a variety of diseases, including gastrointestinal, neurological, heart/lung, musculoskeletal, metabolic/endocrine and cancer.

To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. MayoClinic.com (www.mayoclinic.com) is available as a resource for your health stories.

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To obtain the latest news releases from Mayo Clinic, go to www.mayoclinic.org/news. MayoClinic.com is available as a resource for your health stories.