Goal #7:  Training and career support programs for translational scientists

Cincinnati Children’s recently hosted Discovery Day, welcoming more than 80 middle and high school students to explore careers in healthcare, science, and research. The event offered hands-on demonstrations, opportunities to connect with scientists and healthcare professionals, and information about internships and career pathways. The CCTST is an ongoing proud sponsor of the event.Students explored a variety of scientific techniques from Cincinnati Children’s researchers, including gel electrophoresis, micro- and serological pipetting, and microscopy. In the zebrafish lab, they learned about research studies focused on improving heart development and regeneration.Students also heard from Patrick Ryan, Ph.D., director of the CCTST Workforce Development Program, who demonstrated how researchers use sensors to measure air pollution and how the resulting data can help communities address harmful environmental factors.The Discovery Day experience highlighted the wide range of career opportunities beyond traditional roles, helping students discover new possibilities in healthcare, science, and research.

Cincinnati Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training

Flyer advertising Cincinnati Children's Discovery Day: "Calling all future scientists and health specialists!" Photo includes young students using microscopes and pipetting while wearing white coats and latex gloves

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Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

Cincinnati Children’s recently hosted Discovery Day, welcoming more than 80 middle and high school students to explore careers in healthcare, science, and research. The event offered hands-on demonstrations, opportunities to connect with scientists and healthcare professionals, and information about internships and career pathways. The CCTST is an ongoing proud sponsor of the event. 

Cincinnati Children’s Discovery Day: Inspiring the Next Generation of Health and Research Professionals

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Naomi Carter has a mission, and she'll tell you exactly what it is."My mission is to improve how we treat patients. That is why I wake up every day. It's why I work hard. It's why I mentor. It's why I teach."Carter is a fourth-year M.D.-Ph.D. student in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medschool.vcu.edu/education/graduate/dual-degree/mdphd/">Medical Scientist Training Program</a> at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine and a scholar in the<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://cctr.vcu.edu/education-and-training/t32-training-program/"> Wright Center's Translational Biomedical Sciences T32 Training Program</a>, a fellowship designed to deepen training in translational science and community-engaged research alongside doctoral work."Translational science is when you're trying to go from the bench — research in a lab — to research in humans that is helpful to people," she said. "And there are a lot of little barriers that exist between these two mediums."Her own research targets one of those barriers directly."About 25% of Americans have chronic pain," she said. "That is a huge number." Despite decades of research and billions of dollars in federal funding, less than 1% of clinical trials testing drugs to treat chronic pain succeed. Carter wants to know why."My research is looking at the bumps and barriers and walls between our preclinical research and our clinical research in humans and asking the question, how can we knock those down?" she said. "So that next time when something works preclinically, it actually does work in people."Her work is particularly focused on interstitial cystitis, also known as chronic bladder pain syndrome — a condition affecting roughly 10% of women for which no new therapy has been approved since 1996. "That is before I was born," Carter noted. "So we have a lot of work to do."<h2 style="text-align: left;">From the ambulance to the lab</h2>Carter's path to research started in the back of an ambulance.Growing up in Maryland with a pediatrician mother, she was drawn to medicine early. But becoming an EMT in high school first put her face-to-face with what would become her life's work."When patients call 9-1-1, when they call an ambulance, they are likely having their worst day. The ability to work with them and help take care of those patients was an honor and something that I found really fulfilling." But after dropping patients off, she said, "that was the end of patient care, and I found that frustrating. I wanted to provide extended treatment and continue working with patients."That frustration led her to Hampton University, a historically Black university she describes as "a phenomenal experience," where her freshman biology professor convinced her to explore the MARC program, an NIH-funded initiative aimed at getting students from minority backgrounds into Ph.D. and M.D.-Ph.D. programs."After many, many no’s, she convinced me to go to one of the program meetings. I got intrigued with research, and I started to get a feel for how that could impact my career and impact the people I want to treat." Starting to do research, even in her freshman year, she was hooked.“I just fell in love with it,” she said."I remember walking on campus and thinking, I really like research and I really like medicine. And I think the best thing for me to do is to do both."<h2 style="text-align: left;">Working with mentors</h2>At VCU, Carter works with two mentors: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://pharmtox.vcu.edu/about/directory/s-stevens-negus-phd.html">S. Stevens Negus, Ph.D.</a>, a professor in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://pharmtox.vcu.edu/">Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology</a> in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medschool.vcu.edu/">VCU School of Medicine</a> whose lab specializes in behavioral pharmacology and opioid research; and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://obgyn.vcu.edu/about/our-team/julie-suyama-md-phd.html">Julie Suyama, M.D., Ph.D.,</a> a urogynecologist in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://obgyn.vcu.edu/about/our-team/">Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology</a> in the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://medschool.vcu.edu/">VCU School of Medicine</a>, with deep expertise in interstitial cystitis."Together I have an excellent team of people who can support me in my work, which is to conduct preclinical research and clinical research on pain assessments in preclinical models of and patients with interstitial cystitis," Carter said. "Dr. Negus provides expertise on how we can assess pain preclinically, and Dr. Suyama provides the expertise on how to assess pain in patients."<h2 style="text-align: left;">Securing independent research funding</h2>The T32 is designed to do more than pay a stipend. It requires trainees to develop and submit an extramural grant for their dissertation research and provides students with internal feedback on their grant before it goes to the NIH. "They'll review that grant and provide you with feedback before you submit it," Carter said.This summer, Carter was awarded an NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein F30 predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The F30 fellowship, a highly competitive fellowship meant to support independent training for M.D.-Ph.D. students, will support both the preclinical and clinical arms of her work on pain assessment, exactly the transition from institutional training grant to independent funding that the T32 is built to produce.<h2 style="text-align: left;">A physician-scientist's calling</h2>Carter sees the physician-scientist path as uniquely suited to the translational challenge. "When you're a physician, your focus is on treating patients — not on changing the way that patients are treated. And when you're a preclinical researcher, your focus is on identifying new treatments and advancing the field." The physician-scientist, she argues, is trained to do both — and to see that laboratory discoveries actually reach the people who need them."Becoming a physician-scientist is part of my mission to be uniquely trained to advance how patients are treated. And there's nothing really more important to me than that."She also has a message for the next generation. "VCU's program is one of few programs that focus on clinical and translational research, and I would highly recommend it. My experiences with the program have been really positive, and I'd love to see more people, especially students of color, feel safe and feel supported here."Naomi Carter is an M.D.-Ph.D. student in the VCU Medical Scientist Training Program and a former T32 scholar in the Wright Center's Translational Biomedical Sciences Training Program. The TBS program is funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), grant T32TR004362. For more information, visit <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://cctr.vcu.edu">cctr.vcu.edu</a>.The project described was in part supported by CTSA award No. UM1TR004360 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent official views of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences or the National Institutes of Health.

Wright Regional Center for Clinical and Translational Science

Photo of Naomi Carter sitting in a black office chair

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Virginia Commonwealth University

Naomi Carter is on a mission to improve how we treat patients. "That is why I wake up every day. It's why I work hard. It's why I mentor. It's why I teach," she says.

Carter is a fourth-year M.D.-Ph.D. student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine and a scholar in the Wright Center's Translational Biomedical Sciences T32 Training Program, a pre-doctoral fellowship funded by the National Center for Advancing Translational Science.

Why Don't Pain Treatments Work? Naomi Carter Hopes to Find Out

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Could you describe your role at Scripps Research Translational Institute?I joined in 2012 as co-director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute’s KL2 Career Development Program. This program, funded through the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), enables early-career physicians and other professionals with doctoral degrees to pursue mentored research in clinical and translational science, a field of research focused on identifying and removing roadblocks that are slowing the process of turning observations in the lab into interventions that benefit human health. My first task was to learn how to write training grants to apply for renewed funding for the program’s next cycle. It was quite a learning curve!The Translational Institute and our education programs have grown a lot over the years. We have graduated 38 clinical scholars. Consequently, I became director of education and principal investigator for subsequent grant funding cycles, as well as overseer for our other educational activities including translational science training programs for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows (also funded by the CTSA) and our summer student internships.I would not be able to do all of this without the support and vision of Theresa Hill, who oversees these expanding educational programs. She emphasizes continuous improvement, communication, motivation, and synergistic partnerships to make all our education initiatives better. This allows me, along with other training program leaders—Stuti Jaiswal, Athena Philis-Tsimikas, and Katja Lamia—to focus on curricular content, faculty engagement, and individual career development plans for our scholars and trainees.What does mentoring mean to you, and what do you enjoy most about it?I love science and it’s a joy for me to see young people loving it as well. In this increasingly complicated and distracting world, I hope to provide a supportive environment of enthusiasm and recognition where young scientists can thrive among like-minded people with similar devotion to translational discovery. Training can be a tough time, with successes and setbacks, each year adding new academic challenges and more individual accountability. I enjoy bringing early-career scientists together with one another and with potential role models to show them the variety of ways their hard work will come to fruition, all the sectors that eagerly await their developing expertise, and the peers who understand and celebrate their accomplishments and training milestones. My most important role is learning about each mentee’s unique goals and needs and helping to provide resources and guidance to fulfill them. The best days are full of sharing ideas, giving and receiving novel feedback, and establishing new directions and collaborations together.What do you wish people knew about training the next generation of clinical and translational scientists?They are fearless!&nbsp; They are undaunted by new technologies appearing in rapid succession and invariably are early adopters. They come to our workshops and seminars brimming with ideas about how to apply new translational tools within their own projects and toward new interests. Being so computer and internet savvy from an early age, they naturally combine life science and chemistry with coding and machine learning approaches without feeling cross-disciplinary barriers that used to exist. For our professional development meetings, I often invite faculty and unfailingly the scholars ask probing questions leading to exciting discussions about how to apply the shared experiences in their own career development. The next generation of translational scientists optimistically perseveres in a world not recently as supportive of scientific inquiry, committed to their own learning and to translating discoveries into better lives for people. Listening to them present their work at this level, it’s as if they have no choice but to follow their passion for knowing more about how the world works.What do you like to do in your spare time?Sometimes I feel like I have so little spare time that I can’t remember what I like to do with it! I manage to travel to get off the grid in the wilderness of Alaska, Mexico, South America, or Africa when I have more time, and Torrey Pines when I can’t go far. I’m planning to take my grand-nephews hiking in local slot canyons, and hope to combine a visit to Northern California’s Dipsea Trail with an upcoming conference trip. I’m also trying to book a coastal adventure in Spain for next year’s total eclipse. Cooking at the end of each workday is wonderfully grounding, and trying new recipes is the most fun. I also love to read fiction and am hoping to set aside more time for that in the near future.

Scripps Clinical and Translational Science Hub

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Scripps Research Institute

“Fearless” is the word Laura Nicholson picks to describe the next generation of clinical and translational scientists. As a physician and director of education at the Scripps Research Translational Institute, she sees her job as helping her trainees tap into their passion and realize their potential.

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Cincinnati Children’s Discovery Day: Inspiring the Next Generation of Health and Research Professionals

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