To learn more, please view the MCD-CTS Program 2019 Information Session. (Note that this video will be updated by June 8, 2020.)
Cecilia Patino-Sutton, MD, MeD, PhD, Co-Director, MCD-CTS Program
To learn more, please view the MCD-CTS Program 2019 Information Session. (Note that this video will be updated by June 8, 2020.)
Cecilia Patino-Sutton, MD, MeD, PhD, Co-Director, MCD-CTS Program
The MCD-CTS Award includes financial benefits to support the Scholars' educational, research and other program expenses. Due to SC CTSI’s pending renewal of the Clinical and Translational Science Award from NIH in 2021, funding is contingent upon successful renewal.
Financial Benefits
The award has provided the following financial coverage:
The MCD-CTS program curriculum includes didactic coursework, seminars, individual and group research, and professional conference attendance and research presentation.
Didactic Coursework
The SC CTSI has developed three Clinical Translational Research courses (CTR 1, 2, 3) totaling 12 units which are given under the Department of Preventive Medicine. These courses provide an overarching understanding and view of research from the clinical translational perspective. The courses use interactive teaching methods that require participation and engagement by Scholars. The curriculum also includes courses in informatics and research in diverse populations. They must complete 3 units of directed research as well to obtain a Certificate in CBTI (total of 15 units). Completion of MS in CBTI will require total of 29 units.
Class attendance to CTR 1-3 is required. Continued funding is contingent upon satisfactory participation (i.e., attendance) from the previous year.
Career Development Seminar Series (CDSS)
These monthly seminar sessions are an additional education component to the program. Sessions are intended to develop leadership, scientific, and communication skills. Each session covers a different topic led by an expert facilitator.
Work-in-Progress
Approximately every six months, Scholars give a presentation on their ongoing research. This provides them with an opportunity to receive feedback from their respective colleagues in the program, their mentors, the SC CTSI MCD-CTS Leadership, and other audience members. Work-in-progress presentations will occur in place of seminar session topics. All mentors are required to attend these meetings.
Translational Science Meeting
All Scholars are expected to attend the annual Translational Science Conference sponsored by the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) in the first year of the program. These meetings focus on education sessions designed to provide information on the latest developments in techniques and processes vital to successful clinical translational science. Also, it provides Scholars an opportunity to share their research through presentations and discussions with a large audience of colleagues, peers, and mentors.
Mentors are an integral part of the MCD-CTS program. Each Scholar must have a primary mentor and a co-mentor from a different discipline. The primary mentor should have sufficient independent research support to cover any costs of the proposed research project that exceed the Scholar research funds provided by the MCD-CTS award.
Expectations
During the Scholar’s tenure in the program, mentors are expected to:
Research Areas
To be considered for the MCD-CTS program, applicants must be pursuing a career path in clinical/translational research. Our program strongly encourages applications from a variety of schools and disciplines (medical, health science, pharmacy, social work, psychology, biomedical engineering, etc.), as well as from individuals from our partner institutions including but not limited to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Applicants do not have to have a clinical degree to apply to the MCD-CTS Program, but their career goals and interests must be in multidisciplinary clinical research.
Other criteria:
Career Stage
Scholars must hold a doctoral level degree and be in an early stage of their career as junior faculty who plan to conduct, or are conducting, clinical research. Some Scholars may be at the tenure-track or assistant professor level when they enter the program, but the ideal Scholar could be at an earlier stage. We expect that Scholars will have a faculty appointment in any track, once in the program.
Fellows are eligible for the MCD-CTS program if in their final year of fellowship and have the support from their department to promote them to junior faculty status upon completion of their fellowship. This must be stated in the letters of support from the department/division chair as part of the application submission process.
Citizenship
In accordance with NIH policy, these awards are only for U.S. citizens, non-citizen nationals or permanent residents. Individuals on who possess a temporary or student visa this includes H1B and J1 visas) are not eligible to participate. A non-citizen national is a person born in one of the outlying possessions of the United States, including American Samoa and Swain’s Island, to a parent who is a non-citizen national. This is a person who is a U.S. national but not a U.S. citizen.
Selection Criteria
All applications will be judged first on their merit, with diversity of the cohort considered primarily among those applications that are judged to be sufficiently meritorious. Applicants from divisions where MCD-CTS Scholars have already been selected are encouraged to apply nonetheless. Given the high quality of applicants that we receive, successful applicants from all Departments/Divisions/Schools will usually need to exhibit extraordinary capabilities, research questions and potential.
Multiple K Awards
The timing of a K23, K08, and MCD-CTS Scholar application should be discussed with the WD leadership and your mentors. You are not allowed to have both a K-series grant and be a MCD-CTS Scholar at the same time. The timing of your application should take this into consideration. Please contact the SC CTSI Workforce Development team at wd@sc-ctsi.org.
Previous K
The NIH allows for each Scholar to be sponsored by K-series programs for no more than 5 years in total. Since the minimum amount of time that any one Scholar may spend in this MCD-CTS program is two years, MCD-CTS applicants may not have had more than three years of support under a previous K program. Furthermore, applicants must justify additional mentored research training or training in a team context.
Receiving a MCD-CTS award does not make one ineligible to apply for a future K08 or K23, however, the total combined K award time cannot exceed 5 years. Therefore, after 2 years on a MCD-CTS grant, a Scholar would be eligible for only 3 years under a K23 or another K award. The anticipation is that scholars will submit K23s, K08s, R-type or U-type grant applications (e.g. R03, R21, R01, and U01) during their time in the program.
Those who have had a T32 fellowship are eligible for up to 5 years on the MCD-CTS Award after being supported by a T32.
Combining with Clinical Fellowships
The MCD-CTS Program Award funds cannot be used to support clinical fellowship training. However, applicants in clinical fellowships must be in the final year and have confirmed departmental support to be promoted to junior faculty status upon completion of their fellowship to be eligible for the MCD-CTS Program.
External Review
Applications are reviewed using a dual review system. First, they are reviewed by up to two external reviewers who are content experts in the specific area of research, have experience reviewing mentored career development applications, and who do not have a conflict of interest. The required components of the application which will be reviewed and scored include the: mentoring plan, educational research plan, environment, significance, approach, and candidate as investigator.
The following NIH scoring guidance is used to evaluate and rank applications:
Internal Review
The applications are then evaluated, scored, and ranked accordingly by the internal review committee (SC CTSI Workforce Development program Directors and Co-directors), taking into account the external review committee scores and comments. Applicants with the highest scores and their primary mentor are invited for an in-person interview with the internal review committee. These interviews are to evaluate what the candidate's commitment will be to the program and what their goals are for a career in clinical translational research.
It is extremely important that your application be completed correctly and completely. Please adhere to these guidelines as you assemble application materials and information.
Before you begin the application, please download and review MCD-CTS Application Guidelines. The guideline provides detailed information on application deadline, review process timeline, notification of award, and awardee start date.
The information in the letter of intent allows us to better plan the review process, and assist potential applicants as necessary.
This letter must not exceed 2 pages in length and should contain:
Please note all elements of this section must be completed in order to process all awardee paperwork in a timely manner. In some cases, applicants may already have an eRA Commons user name through the Department of Health and Human Services. If an eRA Commons user name has already been obtained, please enter the user name in the area provided for this section. If you do not have an eRA Commons user name, you may register an eRA commons account through the NIH website. The area of expertise must be completed with the appropriate code. The coding list is provided via drop-down menu word search within the online application form.
Demographic information such as citizenship, residency status, country of birth, gender, race, ethnicity is asked within this section.
The information asked in this section is CONFIDENTIAL and COMPLETELY VOLUNTARY.
List all schools attended in chronological order.
Post-graduate Training Appointments
Work Experience
Board or Other Certification Status
If your application is a re-submission from the previous year (2018) and received reviewers’ comments, applicants may provide a 1-page summary of response to reviewers’ comments from the previous year.
Please use 11-point font as well as include applicant’s name, title of the section and title of the specific component in the header (ex. Applicant: John Doe, MD, Re-submission of Application/Response to Reviewers' Critiques).
Guidelines for Letters of Recommendation and Supporting documents for Mentors and Division Chief/Department Chair
Letters of recommendation (maximum 2 pages) should be provided to the applicant as a PDF file by the Primary mentor, Co-mentor, and Division Chief or Department Chair. Applicants should provide contact information for the Primary mentor, Co-mentor, and Division Chief/Department Chair in the application.
Guidelines for Mentors/Co-mentors
Applicants must obtain letters of support from the mentors identified on their applications (primary mentor and at least one co-mentor). These letters must ensure that they are willing to dedicate the time to be a mentor. Keep in mind that a potential mentor must be well-established in their career and have substantial funding of their own, as well as experience serving as a mentor.
Applicants must ask both the primary and co-mentor to address the items listed below, as well as any other pertinent information. (Adapted from http://grants.nih.gov/grants/peer/critiques/k.htm):
Example of mentor's trainee list with publications.
Guidelines Department Chair/Division Chief Letters
Items the letter of support submitted by the Department or Division Chair must address:
In a collaborative effort with mentors, please provide up to a one page outline/timeline (separately) for each of the following components as part of the mentoring plan:
Please provide a one page statement (in 11-point font) on applicant’s plans for educational development during the award (intention to pursue a Certificate or Master of Science in Clinical, Biomedical, and Translational Investigations, or other coursework, tutorials, or training).
Include and describe structured activities, such as coursework or technique workshops as well as specific benchmarks, and anticipated dates of completion. This portion of the application needs to include didactic courses that will be incorporated into the career development and mentored research experience. Also, explain how this educational plan will facilitate overall long-term career development goals.
The header should include applicant's name and title of this section (ex. Applicant: John Doe, MD, Proposed Education Plan).
Please complete requested financial information which includes selecting the appropriate percent effort applicant intends to commit to for this research/training program as well as applicant’s current annual base salary information. A budget and budget justification are not required as part of the application process.
Applicant and mentors’ signatures must be obtained to complete the submission process.
Please download the signature page form and have all required signatures signed. Required signatures:
Once signatures have been obtained, upload a PDF copy of the signature page to complete the submission process. Please note digital signature with a time stamp will be accepted if original signature is not obtained. If you are not able to obtain all required signatures on the same page, please combine the various pages into one PDF document.
Applicants will be able to submit their applications through WizeHive, an electronic Grant Application and Tracking Environment. Electronic application portal will be accessible starting June 1, 2020 (12:00am).
NIH Funding Acknowledgment: Important - All publications resulting from the utilization of SC CTSI resources are required to credit the SC CTSI grant by including the NIH funding acknowledgment and must comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.