Career Development Program Abstract

Program Director: Peter Nelson, M.D.; Co-directors: Janet Stanford, Ph.D., Paul Lange, M.D.

A Career Development Program will be a major and essential part of this proposed SPORE. Its goal will be to develop physicians, basic and population scientists for lifelong productive careers in translational prostate cancer research. The program will strive to make these individuals scientifically productive, academically successful and influential nationally, and good role models for recruitment of individuals to similar careers.

The program will involve all of the institutions within the SPORE: in Seattle, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), and the University of Washington (UW); in Vancouver, the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Prostate Center at the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH); and, in Portland the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). The coordination between the three areas will involve recruitment, development and educational opportunities, and the interchange of mentors and research opportunities. The specific goals of this program are to:

1. Recruit and train four to seven post-doctoral fellows in prostate cancer translational research per year;
   
   
2. Recruit and nurture one to two faculty members at each institution whose main interest is prostate cancer translational research every 2-3 years;
   
   
3. Enhance and develop a broad program of education and mentoring within the SPORE environment. This educational program will involve not only a large spectrum of individual research opportunities, but also a more formal educational experience of didactic courses and a large number of scheduled conferences and seminars.

Recruitment of fellows and junior faculty will occur through the planned educational program and by systematic recruitment efforts. These individuals will be monitored and mentored by a specific Career Development committee, and by 47 multidisciplinary investigators at these institutions both within and outside the SPORE whose research interests and accomplishments reflect prostate cancer research concerns.