Abstract During the last RCMI funding cycle we have successfully established a Mentoring Academy at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) with the specific goal of facilitating faculty development leading to sustainable research growth. We took on a team mentoring approach to facilitate change in our scientific environment. The Investigator Development Core (IDC) will continue to build on the foundation of the previous RCMI accomplishments by working synergistically with the Administration Core, Community Engagement Core, Recruitment Core and the Research Infrastructure Core to create a vibrant research development environment conducive to nurturing the next generation of biomedical investigators who will sustain independent careers in basic, translational and/or clinical research related to health disparities and are responsive to the MSM mission of advancing health equity. The IDC is designed to establish an institution-wide organizational framework for research faculty development, research program start-up support and mentorship. Our central hypothesis is that mentoring constellations will lead to sustainable individualized growth leading to the advancement of health disparity research and health equity. We will address this hypothesis in three specific aims. Specific Aim 1: Provide an organizational frame work for enhancing research training and career development in an interdisciplinary biomedical, pre-clinical, clinical and social science environment. We expect to develop a sustainable investigator development core to facilitate the independent career advancement of our faculty who can translate the results of their research to reduce health disparity. Specific Aim 2: Provide a vibrant training environment that fosters innovative, interdisciplinary biomedical, pre-clinical, clinical and social science collaboration and scholarship. We expect to transform the siloed biomedical, preclinical, clinical and social science environment to one of engaged team science across the translational continuum. Specific Aim 3: Provide an institution-wide resource that leverages existing training programs and integrates research project support and mentorship to enhance independent career advancement. Achievement of this aim will lead to the sustainable growth of our research environment enterprise through individual career advancement. It is our expectation that the proposed program will significantly and positively impact the study of health disparity research by helping to build a pool of competitive, independent researchers who are dedicated to sustaining research careers that focus on diseases that disproportionately affect minority and health disparity populations.