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Cleveland consortium to share in $14 million federal grant
Case, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth, Veterans Affairs Medical Center to collaborate to create national model to train clinical research leaders
The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $14 million grant to a consortium of Cleveland educators and health care providers for a new program to train the next generation of clinical research leaders. The new program is intended to become a national model for re-engineering the nation’s clinical research environment and workforce. It is part of the NIH’s new “strategic road map” of priorities designed to optimize medical research efforts nationwide.
The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University will administer the five-year grant, which is being developed collaboratively with Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals of Cleveland, MetroHealth Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The grant will support development of the Case/Cleveland Clinic Multidisciplinary Research Training Program, which will provide advanced training to post-doctoral clinical research scholars. Over 100 of Cleveland’s most prominent clinical investigators worked as a cohesive team for over 6 months to prepare a joint application with the NIH to fund the new training program.
“Our clinical research scholars will complete their training programs with the knowledge and skills necessary to conduct cutting-edge research and lead teams of investigators who recognize the need to integrate their efforts to produce the best outcomes,” said Richard Rudick, M.D., chairman of the Division of Clinical Research at The Cleveland Clinic. “With this program, we have the power to attract and retain clinical researchers who will drive the translation of scientific discoveries into better diagnostics and therapeutics that ultimately will benefit patients and their families.”
The Cleveland program will admit 25 students, recruiting the best clinical research scholars in the nation. The scholars, who will already have doctoral degrees, will represent diverse professional backgrounds, and varied research topics related to health and disease. The program will emphasize multidisciplinary team-based research to tackle the nation’s most complex and important health problems.
“One of the great things about this application is its collaborative nature,” said Edward Hundert, M.D., president of Case Western Reserve University. “The NIH review committee was so impressed to find the Cleveland Clinic, the Case School of Medicine, University Hospitals, MetroHealth Medical Center, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center all working together on the application that they gave us a priority score among the best I’ve ever seen. This really is a cooperative effort.”
The Cleveland institutions are among a select group of medical institutions the NIH has designated to launch clinical research programs that will train highly specialized researchers to fuel the nation’s future clinical researcher workforce. The clinical research training program will use case-based learning methods, similar to those applied by the new Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Likewise, the program’s mentor initiatives will mirror those used within the Case Weatherhead School of Management, allowing each scholar to have at least two mentors to support them in their research projects.
“This is an extraordinary and innovative step on the part of the NIH to provide support for new pathways for training clinical investigators,” said Ralph Horwitz, M.D., dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs. “Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the NIH, deserves enormous credit for the way in which he’s brought this (clinical research training program) into the NIH repertories of grant support.”
October 11, 2004 | For more information: Raquel Santiago 216-444-4235
Cole Hatcher 216-445-1991
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