JULY 2023

NEWSLETTER

The Center for Advanced Research Training & Innovation (CARTI) newsletter lists upcoming events, resources, services and grant deadlines for UMB research faculty and fellows. To register for CARTI's upcoming events, click HERE.

Now Accepting Applications!

Clinical/Translational and Public Health Research Training Track Program

Application Deadline: Tuesday, July 25, 2023 by 5:00pm EDT

CARTI is accepting applications for the Clinical/Translational and Public Health Research Training Track. This program provides training to UMSOM senior fellows and early-stage faculty who are seeking foundational training in developing and executing a mentored clinical research project, including effectively communicating your research to get published and funded. Visit the website to learn more about this program and to download the application.

Information Session:

CARTI recently held an information session to discuss and answer questions re: the Clinical/Translational and Public Health Research Training Track Program and application process. Click HERE to view the recording.

See details for our upcoming Q&A session on July 13th below.

Contact Janea Williams with any questions.

Open Q&A Session:

Clinical/Translational and Public Health Research

Training Track Program

Thursday, July 13

9:30 - 10:00am

Zoom

This open Q&A session will give potential applicants the opportunity to ask questions regarding CARTI's new "Clinical/Translational and Public Health Research Training Track Program" and application process. Applications are due July 25, 2023 by 5pm EDT. Visit the website to learn more about this program and to download the application.

Information Session:

Passano Foundation Clinician-Investigator Award for

Career Development

Thursday, July 20

9:00 – 10:00am

Zoom

This information session will provide potential candidates with an overview of the Passano Foundation Clinician-Investigator Award for Career Development at the UMSOM, including tips for applying. This award was created to provide partial salary and fringe benefits for clinician-investigators in the early stages of their faculty appointment (full-time appointment as instructor or assistant professor in a clinical department). The purpose of this award is to help protect the research time and thereby further the acquisition of expertise and preliminary results for qualified young UMSOM faculty clinician-investigators while they apply for external career development grant support. The deadline for Internal submission of applications for this award is October 2, 2023. Read the guidelines for more information on this award.

Speaker: Curt Civin, MD, Philip A. Zaffere Distinguished Professor in Regenerative Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics and Physiology; Director, Center for Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine; Scientist, UM Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, UMSOM

NIH Repays Your Student Loans!

Overview of the NIH's Loan Repayment Programs

Wednesday, September 13

1:00 - 2:00pm

Zoom

Guest Speaker: Matthew R. Lockhart, MBA, Director, Division of Loan Repayment, Office of Extramural Research (OER), National Institutes of Health

The NIH Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs) are a set of programs established by Congress designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or biobehavioral research centers. The NIH LRPs pay up to $50,000 annually of qualified educational debt in return for a commitment to engage in NIH mission-relevant research. Applicants must hold an M.D., Ph.D., Psy.D., Pharm.D, D.O., D.D.S., D.M.D. D.P.M, D.C., N.D., O.D., D.V.M, or equivalent doctoral-level degree (except for the Contraception & Infertility Research LRP). The NIH LRPs will accept applications from September 1-November 16, 2023. Don’t miss your opportunity to learn how you could receive up to $100,000 in educational debt relief!

The following LRPs are available to non-NIH scientists:

1) Clinical Research 

2) Pediatric Research

3) Health Disparities Research

4) Research in Emerging Areas Critical to Human health (REACH)

5) Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Backgrounds 

6) Contraception & Infertility Research

For more information, visit the NIH LRP website at http://www.lrp.nih.gov  

Tips for Increasing Your Scientific Writing Productivity

Thursday, September 14

9:00 – 10:00am

Zoom

Writing is a fundamental part of a scientist’s “job”, but strategies for writing efficiently are rarely taught. As a result, scientists often struggle with writing, especially with the practical steps of the writing process, such as how to get started. This session begins with tips for increasing writing productivity, with a focus on making writing part of your workday. These tips are designed to make writing easier and to help participants write more quickly and efficiently.

One of the most successful strategies for increasing writing productivity is to join a writing accountability group. Participants will learn about different writing accountability group opportunities available to UMB faculty, fellows and postdocs.

Speakers: Marey Shriver, PhD, Executive Director for Faculty Development, CARTI and Stacie Mendoza, Program Director, CARTI

Project Management

Thursday, September 21

1:00 – 2:00pm

Zoom

This session will identify some of the techniques used for managing a research project and your role as a research program/team leader.

Subjects include:

• Strategies for planning, initiating, executing and finishing a project
• Resolving conflicts
• Monitoring and controlling a project
• Management and leadership styles

Speaker: David A. Rasko PhD, Professor, Institute for Genome Sciences, Department of Microbiology & Immunology; Co-Program Director, Systems-Level Research in Microbial Pathogenesis Training Program, UMSOM

Negotiation Skills

Thursday, October 5

1:00 – 2:00pm

Zoom

The ability to negotiate successfully is essential to managing a research program; however, early stage faculty often lack training in negotiations skills. In addition, scientists –especially at the early stages of their careers –feel uncomfortable with the process of negotiating, and are uncertain how to do this effectively. During this session, participants will receive tips for negotiating for protected time, resources, etc. as an early stage faculty member.

Speaker: Christine L. Lau, MD, MBA, Dr. Robert W. Buxton Chair & Professor, Department of Surgery, UMSOM

Writing Your First NIH R01 Grant Application

Two-Part Seminar Series

PART 1:

Tuesday, September 12

9:00 – 10:00am

Zoom

PART 2:

Tuesday, September 19

9:00 – 10:00am

Zoom

This two-part seminar series is targeted to new/junior faculty members who have not yet applied to the NIH or who are planning to prepare their first R01 application. Please see the details and topics for each session below.

Part 1:  Topics include:  

·      When does NIH consider an investigator ready for R01?  

·      Best ways to structure specific aims  

·      How to demonstrate innovation and feasibility  

·      Avoid known major weakness and common pitfalls  

·      Know your reviewers  

Part 2:  Topics include:  

·      Tips on effective grant writing and formatting 

·      How to make your reviewers your advocates 

·      Preparing a winning mindset for grant writing 

·      Big picture: how to extrapolate NIH statistics to your grant writing 

Speaker: Christy Chang, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine; Director, ICTR KL2 program; Senior Program Advisor, CARTI, UMSOM

Engaging Your Research Team During Grant Writing

Tuesday, October 10

9:00 – 10:00am

Zoom

Engaging your research team during grant writing is a necessary skill for those tasked with drafting a proposal. This session will provide practical strategies for organizing and managing group dynamics and tasks during the phases of the grant writing process. These strategies will increase the efficacy of your research team and the probability of a successfully funded proposal.

Speaker: Owen White, PhD, Director of Bioinformatics, UM School of Medicine; Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, UMSOM

Learn to Easily Analyze Your Clinical Dataset with the

Simple Visual Analytics Tool: POD-Vis

Thursday, October 19

9:00 – 10:00am

Zoom

POD-Vis (Probing Outcomes Data with Visual Analytics) is a web-based visual analytics tool that explores and analyzes all types of clinical data. Developed through a collaboration between Dr. Lisa Shulman (Neurology) and Anup Mahurkar (IGS Informatics Resource Center), POD-Vis is designed for easy data visualization and analysis by non-data scientists. Using the simple clinical language of predictors and outcomes, you will learn to explore interrelationships between study variables, develop preliminary data, and generate hypotheses. This session will provide a comprehensive overview and demonstration of POD-Vis with a special opportunity to upload your dataset into POD-Vis for your personal use.

Speakers: Lisa M. Shulman, MD, Eugenia Brin Endowed Professor of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders, Department of Neurology; Director, University of Maryland Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders Center; UMSOM and Anup Mahurkar, B.E., MBA, Executive Director of Software Engineering & Information Technology, Institute of Genome Sciences, UMSOM

Strategies for Effective Literature Searches

Thursday, Sept 28

1:00 – 1:30pm

Zoom

Conducting a comprehensive literature search is an important part of any writing project, especially in the early stages of writing a research manuscript. This 30-minute session will provide strategies for effective literature searches including:

• How to select possible search terms, keywords, phrases and subject headings
• An overview of different searchable databases and how to adapt your search strategy for each database
• How to refine your strategies after reviewing the search results
• How to complement your literature search with citation searching/cited reference searching

Speaker: Nicole Shelawala, M.Eng, MLIS, Research and Education Librarian, School of Medicine, Health Sciences & Human Services Library, UMB

Strategies to Maximize Scholarship

Thursday, September 28

3:00 - 4:00pm

Health Sciences Research Facility III Building (HSRF3), Room 1010, 1st floor

670 W. Baltimore Street

(A virtual option is also available)

This seminar is for the clinician-educator on strategies to turn your current clinical work and education efforts into scholarship projects that can be disseminated in multiple formats to maximize your scholarship and enhance your teaching and clinical portfolios for promotion.

Learning objectives:

• To define scholarship in academic medicine
• To reflect on how scholarship fits into your current and future career plans
• To develop a plan for turning your current clinical work and education efforts into scholarship projects that can be disseminated in multiple formats to maximize your work

Speakers: Rose Marie Viscardi, MD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Pediatrics, UMSOM and Erin L. Giudice, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UMSOM

Accreditation and Credit Designation

The University of Maryland School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine designates this Live activity for a maximum of 1.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. 

Scholarly Writing Accountability Group (SWAG) Program

Virtual Program to Help Faculty Increase Their Scholarly Writing Productivity

Are you struggling to find time to dedicate to your scholarly writing projects? Making time to write papers can be a challenging task as it competes with other faculty demands. To help UMB junior faculty meet this challenge, the Center for Advanced Research Training & Innovation (CARTI) provides a peer accountability/support program designed to increase writing productivity. This program is called Scholarly Writing Accountability Group (SWAG).

New 5-week option this summer

Due to busy summer schedules, CARTI is now offering a 5-week SWAG Program to our faculty this summer.

What is a SWAG?

A SWAG is an active peer-led writing group for UMB junior faculty who meet virtually for 1-hour, once a week. Groups follow a structured agenda including 15 minutes of updates and goal-setting followed by 30 minutes of individual writing and then 15 minutes of reporting and wrap-up. Each group is limited to 4-8 members who must commit to attending at least 4 out of the 5 weekly sessions. In a SWAG, there is no peer review of writing; SWAGs focus on the process of writing, not the content. The purpose of SWAG is to help junior faculty get in the habit of 1) writing in short blocks of time daily or almost every day and 2) identifying and prioritizing feasible writing goals each week.

What are the Benefits of Joining a SWAG? 

Faculty who join SWAG will:

• Develop new writing habits to achieve writing goals
• Improve time management skills
• Gain a greater sense of control over the writing process
• Build a small community of support/social network

Summer SWAG opportunities:

• Wednesdays 3-4pm (July 12 – Aug 9)

To join any of these groups, please complete the following request form online: https://umbforms.wufoo.com/forms/request-to-join-swag

Questions? Email Stacie Mendoza

CARTI'S Seminar Slides & Recordings

CARTI'S Individual Consultations

CARTI'S Mini LIbrary

Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HSHSL)

University of Maryland, Baltimore

Boost your Research Impact this Summer!

5-Day Challenge

July 10-14, 2023

Summer is a busy time for research activity, so the HSHSL is jumping in with a 5-day challenge designed to improve the reach of your scholarly work! Each day will involve a brief but meaningful activity, including:

• Finding your Scopus author profile
• Locating research impact metrics in Scopus and elsewhere
• Learning about the responsible use of metrics
• Finding ways to boost your impact

If you complete any of the activities and fill out our evaluation survey at the end of the challenge, you will be entered to win some library swag!

Register to receive daily challenges from July 10-14, 2023.

The Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) 

Baltimore Chapter

The Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) is a non-profit, charitable and educational membership organization committed to providing education, certification, and networking opportunities to all persons involved in clinical research activities. 

The Baltimore Chapter's monthly meetings are free and open to the public. Registration is required.  Below is the topic for the next meeting:

Untangling the CDRH Regulatory Framework for

Medical Devices

Wednesday July 26

12:00 - 1:00pm

Zoom

Please join the Baltimore SOCRA Chapter as we welcome Ms. Donna Headlee, RN, BSN, CCRP, Branch Chief, Premarket Programs Branch of the Division of Industry and Consumer Education, Office of Communication and Education within the CDRH at the FDA.  

The learning objectives for this meeting are to: 



• Provide a basic understanding of the regulations guiding medical device research and development 
• Become familiar with topics such as medical device determination and classification; Clinical trials Risk categorizations and IDE studies; and Marketing applications (PMAs, 510(k)s and HDEs) 
• Know how to access resources and contacts in medical device regulatory navigation

Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, UMSOM

Introduction to Clinical and Translational Research

at UMB & Baltimore VA

August 7-11, 2023

9:00 – 3:15pm (Monday – Thursday)*

9:00 – 1:45pm (Friday)

*ending times vary

NEW LOCATION:

School of Dentistry, Room #G310, Ground Floor, 650 W. Baltimore Street

(A virtual option will be available to those who cannot attend in person)

The Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at UMSOM is pleased to sponsor the 22^nd annual “Introduction to Clinical and Translational Research at UMB & Baltimore VA” course.

This course is open to all UMB and Baltimore VA faculty, fellows, residents, students and staff with an interest in clinical and translational research. This course is designed for anyone interested in improving skills in study design for clinical research, scientific communication, and grant writing.

The course is free of charge and open to those affiliated with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and Baltimore VA, and investigators at the Baltimore VA Medical Center.

CREDITS: To receive academic/graduate school credit, students already enrolled in a UMB graduate school program should register for PREV 616 in the 2023 fall semester. To register for PREV 616 in the fall, contact your graduate program office. Anyone who is interested in registering for PREV616 in the fall, MUST contact Dr. Kristen Stafford to discuss eligibility prior to registering. Dr. Stafford’s email is kstafford@ihv.umaryland.edu.

CME credits and other continuing medical education credits will not be offered for this course.  

COURSE AGENDA: Click HERE

COURSE DIRECTORS:

• Jennifer Albrecht, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, UMSOM 
•  John Sorkin, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Medicine, Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics, UMSOM 

This course is jointly sponsored by:

• University of Maryland Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (UM-OAIC)
• Baltimore VA Medical Center, Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Centers (GRECC)
• Center for Advanced Research Training & Innovation, UMSOM (CARTI)

QUESTIONS: Contact Stacie Mendoza at smendoza@som.umaryland.edu

Funding Opportunities

Seeking Foundation Funding for your Research?

The SOM’s Office of Development, Corporate and Foundation Relations, provides services and resources to assist UMSOM faculty with identifying private foundation funding for research, programs, educational initiative, and community outreach at the local, regional, and national level. Visit their website for more information and to schedule an appointment. 

Additional funding opportunities can be found at:

 UMSOM Internal Funding Opportunities & External Funding Databases

UMGCCC Funding Database

(Cancer related research)

Follow us!