DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The candidate, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, is applying for a K24 renewal to further advance her career as a clinical investigator and mentor. Her immediate career objectives are to: 1) expand her research portfolio and further establish herself as a leader on patient-oriented osteoporosis research and 2) grow her mentoring program. Her long term career goals are to become a more active and effective institutional leader in patient-oriented research, to leverage collaboration, and advance the broader discipline of clinical research at the University of Pittsburgh. Accomplishments during the past 4 years include: 1) research: establishment of a highly productive clinical research program focused on osteoporosis diagnosis, pathophysiology, prevention, treatment in older patients and patients with cancer- related bone loss, 2) funding: principal investigator for 4 federally-funded research grants including 2 R01s, a P30 core grant and Department of Defense grant, 3) publication record: 38 original articles with 2/3 as senior or first author, 4) mentoring: trained 29 mentees including junior faculty, fellows, residents, medical students and PhD candidates (five fellows received a Certificate or Masters in our K30 program and twenty seven [93%] remain in academic programs), 5) mentee funding: an R03, a K01, two NCRR CREFF awards and two advisee K23 awards; two K23 and one K12 submitted. For the K24 competitive renewal her research will focus on 1) osteoporosis in nursing home patients with a newly funded R01, 2) cancer-related bone loss in men with prostate cancer with a newly funded Department of Defense grant and 3) prevention of bone loss in older women with breast cancer. Student, resident, fellow, and faculty mentoring will be enhanced by the K30 program, the NIH Clinical Translational Science Award and other career development didactic programs coupled with a strong institutional charge to support patient oriented research. To compliment her long term institutional commitment, she will assume a new leadership role as director of the Clinical Translational Research Center at Braddock (a minority based center) and co-director of the University K23 Mentoring Program. Public Health Relevance: Renewal of this K24 award provides protected time to broaden her clinical research and mentoring activities on target with the NIH mission to foster careers of junior investigators in clinical translational research.
