North Texas ADRC - Research Education Component

Ut Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas TX

Investigators

Abstract

The Research Education Component (REC) of the North Texas Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (NT- ADRC) aims to develop and enhance research educational and training activities in support of future generations of the research workforce to address the national need for high quality investigators engaged in transformative and multidisciplinary research. The REC focuses on enrolling and developing early-stage investigators from diverse backgrounds in its training programs, promote their career and support their growth towards independence. The REC activities and programs are geared towards meeting the overall goal of the NT-ADRC of examining the role of hypertension and other cardiometabolic factors and underlying molecular mechanisms in the pre- and early symptomatic phases of AD/ADRD, developing innovative biomarkers for these stages and identifying potential therapeutic targets. We are leveraging an extremely robust set of local research educational resources spanning strong neuroscience and world renown cardiovascular research programs, unique strengths in biomedical engineering, data sciences, and informatics, state-of-the-art neuroimaging, and successful clinical and translational research in AD therapeutics at UT Southwestern and our member institutions. The REC will serve as a training hub by interacting with the other cores and link with the National REC resources to provide outstanding AD research training. The REC curriculum includes a set of activities developed by the Center in addition to resources leveraged by the institution or training partners and collaborators. REC Scholars will be enrolled for 1-2 years. Their REC program includes mentoring as well as a combination of experiential and synchronous and asynchronous educational activities. We identify the REC Scholars from multiple training programs (Behavioral Neurology, Neuropsychiatry, Cardiology, Hypertension, Neuropathology, Clinical Informatics and Geriatrics fellowships), and Doctorate programs (Neuropsychology, Neuroscience, Social Work, and Biomedical Engineering). The NT-ADRC REC program is designed to mentor new or early-stage investigators to advance towards independence in AD/ADRD research, particularly investigators/trainees from under-represented groups. The REC Leaders in conjunction with the REC committee members who possess diverse skills and backgrounds will oversee the activities of the REC, address barriers to success, and evaluate the Scholars to ensure they accomplish their career goals and the program to ensure it accomplishes its overall mission.