Learning through Translational Research Projects – A Route to Teamwork, Skill Development and Self‐Awareness in Biomedical Sciences Graduate Education

Abstract

The biomedical sciences graduate program at EVMS is an umbrella graduate program towards PhD and Masters’ of sciences degrees. The reality of much of today's research, whether academic or commercially-oriented, will require our graduates to work in collaborations and/or in multi-disciplinary teams. In addition, despite having the advantage of being part of a medical school, the graduate students get little or no exposure to the clinician's view of the translational aspects required to deliver a new therapeutic or diagnostic. To address these gaps in the training of our graduate students, we have leveraged our local resources to design a highly interactive, inter-professional, project- and team-based translational course: “Methods and Logic in Translational Biology”. Our intended goals for this course are: i) to enable our students to interact with clinicians to recognize and validate unmet clinical needs in human disease; ii) to learn the skills needed to creatively conceptualize a translational project (biology, pre-clinical, clinical, regulatory, commercialization) to address those needs; and, to learn working in a team of diverse personalities, workstyles and backgrounds whilst having communal responsibility to devise and deliver on time a single output (a written and oral presentation of their project proposal). We recruited clinical faculty, biostatisticians, basic science faculty experienced in translational research and adjunct faculty with experience in drug discovery, therapeutics and commercialization. Teams of 3-4 students work under the supervision of a Faculty Mentor to deliver 2 projects over the course. The projects are focused on 2 disease areas. The student teams are assessed based on a project that will be defended as an oral presentation and submitted as a 6-page written proposal. Proposals found particularly meritorious by the examining faculty panel may be recommended for submission for publication as a hypothesis/opinion paper. At the conclusion of the course, the students are also graded on a written personal reflection of their learning experiences of teamwork over their two projects. In addition, each student is evaluated by their team peers for their contribution to teamwork over the two projects. After the fourth iteration, this course successfully met the set goals, based on assessment from students and faculty. Student satisfaction was evaluated using a combination of Likert scale metrics and open-ended questions. The students particularly appreciated the team aspect of the learning, along with the peer feedback summary. Our small enrollment rate of 7-12 students/year and a student/faculty ratio of ~1:3 offers some distinct opportunities for team work and individual mentoring. This course capitalizes on this structure to provide a unique environment for graduate students to acquire skills such as team-work and leadership in addition to the opportunity to interact with clinicians to creatively design and present translational projects under the supervision of expert faculty.