Helping hands: Organizations, institutions work to assist and mentor early career investigators.

Abstract

CancerVolume 122, Issue 2 p. 173-174 CancerScopeFree Access Helping hands: Organizations, institutions work to assist and mentor early career investigators First published: 07 January 2016 https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.29860AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat David DeGraff, PhD, knew he wanted to pursue a career in academic medical research, and he credits strong mentorship along with support from programs such as the Postdoctoral Fellowships award from the American Cancer Society (ACS) with helping him stay in the field. However, that does not mean that he has not had challenges. At times, similar to many early career investigators, he contemplated whether to continue in academic research at all. “When I started graduate school, I started to see how people were struggling,” says Dr. DeGraff, now an assistant professor in the department of pathology at Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine in Hershey. “It was the end of the National Institutes of Health [NIH] budget doubling period, and the funding climate was getting difficult. It got more and more difficult as I progressed.” A report recently published in The FASEB Journal confirms the problem.1 The study data demonstrated that despite continuing increases in the number of PhD students, there was a 5.5% loss in the postdoctoral population from 2010 to 2013, the most recent survey year. Lead author Howard Garrison, PhD, adds, “For some newly minted PhD students, eschewing a postdoc may reflect a rational response to a tight academic labor market with low compensations and uncertain prospects for success.” Deciding to pursue academic research in this climate is not always an easy choice. Dr. DeGraff and his wife, for example, were beginning a family when he received his PhD. At that point, he says, “All options were on the table.” Of those who began the program with him, few stayed in academic research. Some went on to careers in medical communications whereas one classmate who was relatively successful as a postdoctoral candidate is now a realtor. Fortunately, Dr. DeGraff, who did his postdoctoral work at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, had strong mentorship working in the laboratory of Robert Matusik, PhD. In 2009, he received a 3-year, $150,000 ACS grant that helped him to obtain NIH funding for his research. Dr. DeGraff currently runs his own laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, where he focuses on identifying the molecular drivers of both early-stage and invasive bladder cancer. “I think of the job we have as like a calling,” he says. “There are a lot of pitfalls but you do the best science you can so you can get the funding to continue your work.” Leaders across the cancer field, including research institutions, the NIH, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and major cancer organizations, all have created mechanisms to help early career investigators remain in the field. NCI Programs The NCI is developing a new grant program to support the transition from predoctoral to postdoctoral work. The F99/K00 will be a non-National Research Service Award mechanism that also will allow support for foreign national researchers. NCI leaders hope to have the funding opportunity announcement completed in time to make awards in fiscal year 2016, according to Jonathan S. Wiest, PhD, director of the NCI Center for Cancer Training. The NCI hopes to award 30 grants per year, providing salary support as well as some money for travel. Dr. Wiest says the main goal is to provide further support for the career track of early career investigators, enabling them to choose the laboratories in which they want to pursue their postdoctoral research and “the science they're most passionate about.” He adds that the applications will be based on nominations from the institutions, and therefore the NCI will be more likely to select individuals who will continue in the academic research track. Agreeing with the recent findings of the study by Garrison et al, Dr. Wiest says, “If you look at the numbers, there are tons of people going to grad school and leaving with PhDs; the bottlenecks are at the transition points where people go in other directions, and we're hoping to support people across those 2 transition points, from predoc to postdoc and postdoc to tenure track positions.” NCI senior leadership also is examining competitive renewals of grants for early-stage investigators compared with those of established investigators and exploring ways to ensure these renewals also are funded because this point is another juncture at which researchers can fall out of the pipeline, Dr. Wiest says. “I still think there are lots of bright, hardworking, passionate people who are interested in an independent research career track,” he says. “We need to nurture those people and do everything we can to assist them to where they have a stably funded research program and [can] be productive for years to come.” The NCI Office of Education in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics has the largest epidemiology/genetics training program in the world and places a particular focus on retaining trainees, especially minority students. Together with other NCI and NIH training programs, they offer an array of career and professional training for their fellows. To address the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups in research, the office performs significant outreach to these populations, says Jackie Lavigne, PhD, MPH, chief of the office. Not only does the program recruit summer interns of diverse backgrounds, but the office has a postdoctoral fellowship program. Although both programs are new, the latter has recruited 7 fellows, 2 of whom have completed their postdoctoral programs and have secured positions in academia. Other Opportunities In addition to the ACS grants, various cancer organizations have their own programs that support scientists early in their careers. For example, in June, the American Association for Cancer Research announced the launch of its NextGen Grants for Transformative Cancer Research, a new funding initiative to stimulate highly innovative research from young investigators. The grants will provide a total of $450,000 over a period of 3 years, beginning on July 1, 2016. Recipients will formally accept the grants at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, which will be held from April 16 to 20, 2016, in New Orleans, Louisiana. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) offers Young Investigator Awards through its philanthropic arm, the Conquer Cancer Foundation. These 1-year grants for $50,000 support clinical oncology research, including laboratory work that will lead to patient-oriented clinical research. Many NCI-designated cancer centers also provide their own support to early career investigators. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) in Houston offers a variety of programs in this area. Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD, the provost and executive vice president of MDACC, says, “We seek to do all we can to support career faculty at all levels,” but he points to specific mechanisms designed to help junior faculty who are “the most vulnerable” to tight federal budgets for biomedical research. Among them are the Clark Fellowship program, which provides $100,000 to assistant professors during their first 3 years. Sixteen grants have been awarded to date, and the program is in its second round of solicitation. “It's a wonderful way to jump start the careers of junior faculty because it gives them more time to develop their grant applications to private foundations and the NIH,” he says. Other awards are made to both junior and senior faculty at MDACC, including the Clinical Innovator Award and the University of Texas Rising Star Award. MDACC also benefits from funding from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to help recruit both junior and senior faculty. CPRIT was created in 2007 after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment and authorized the state to issue $3 billion in bonds to fund groundbreaking cancer research and prevention programs and services in Texas. To date, MDACC has received more than $192 million from CPRIT to recruit outstanding faculty and more than $47 million for research, prevention, and training, Dr. Dmitrovsky says. The institution also helps junior faculty by holding internal mock study sections that are conducted similarly to NIH study sections. They enable faculty members to participate in a peer review of their grant proposals before they are submitted to the NIH or other funding organizations. Last year, MDACC inaugurated a 3-day clinical methods and design workshop to help junior faculty develop their research protocols. Other efforts to help faculty with transitions to new grants include an expanded internal research grant program, a knowledge gap grant program, and a clinical research program. Continuing Challenges All of these programs are an important response to the challenging funding climate, Dr. Dmitrovsky adds. He also stresses the need to educate the public and government representatives regarding the many benefits of supporting research at both the state and federal levels. “Our faculty spend more and more time writing grant proposals and less time doing what we want them to do, which is to address the cancer problem,” he says. However, clearly, researchers with a passion for their work, like Dr. DeGraff, are continuing as best they can despite the sometimes daunting challenges. “I try not to get too focused on the funding climate,” he says. “I try to focus on doing the best science we can and think about how our science can make the patient's plight better.” “There are lots of bright, hard-working, passionate people who are interested in an independent research career track. We need to nurture those people and do everything we can to assist them to where they have a stably funded research program and [can] be productive for years to come.”—Jonathan S. Wiest, PhD References 1 Garrison HH, Justement LB, Gerbi SA. Biomedical science postdocs: an end to the era of expansion [published online ahead of print October 6, 2015]. FASEB J. doi:10.1096/fj.15-280552. Volume122, Issue2January 15, 2016Pages 173-174 This article also appears in:CancerScope Archive 2014-2019 ReferencesRelatedInformation