HYPERTENSION TRAINING GRANT

Medical College Of Wisconsin, Milwaukee WI

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

This is a competitive renewal for a postdoctoral training grant (5 T32 HL07792) for M.D. and Ph.D. fellows studying the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to development of hypertension, renal and vascular disease. During the initial four years we trained 4 M.D. and 4 Ph.D. fellows; one of the M.D. fellows was funded through a minority supplement. Two of the M.D. fellows will receive advanced academic degrees by the end of their fellowship training: Dr Marcie Berger will receive a Ph.D. in Physiology working with Dr. Nancy Rusch on the regulation of ion channels in vascular smooth muscle, studying the mechanisms by which pH affects K channels using patch- and voltage-clamp techniques and Dr. Vishwantha Nadig will receive a Master's Degree in Physiology working with Drs. Theodore Kotchen and Howard Jacob on genetic susceptibility of aortic lesions in rats, and genetic dissection of complex diseases in humans. All of the M.D. fellows are about to finish their training plan and remain in academic medicine. Fellows have published 15 manuscripts in refereed journals and at least 3 are in preparation. Thus, the quality of fellows and training within the program is high as evidenced by their ability to obtain individual training grants, received academic degrees (M.D. fellows), level of productivity, and state-of-the-art areas of training. In addition, we are encouraged by our minority recruitment efforts through minority supplements and inquiries by minority applicants. The large percentage of our M.D. fellows who plan to develop independent academic careers, and obtained advanced academic degrees is encouraging in that it was one of our primary objectives. We have been fortunate in our ability to attract quality applicants, and for the past 42 months have had many more applicants than positions available. The proposed continuation of this program will continue to provide a unique and state-of-the-art training opportunity for our fellows. We will stress, even more strongly, translational and integrative research in which fellows will translate cellular and molecular data with respect to their physiological function at the organ, experimental and human level. We have added new mentors to the program who will facilitate these objectives. The renewal of NIH funding for our Clinical Research Center will greatly augment the ability of our fellows to translate their basic research findings into clinically relevant scenarios. We are encouraged by our training program and number of high quality applicants in our pool., and are requesting increasing the number of slots from 3 to 6 annually. It is a requirement by the PI that all mentors have current NIH funding.